


more than anything

by andnowforyaya



Category: B.A.P, Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Death, Gen, Hospitals, Kidnapping, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Supernatural Elements, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9173371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: “You were one of the EMTs who brought in the jumper, right?”.Hoseok helps save a boy's life. That's his job. So why can't he let him go?





	1. Chapter 1

In the few seconds before your feet hit the water, you told me it was the most peaceful you had ever felt. You knew things would be okay. You felt the wind in your hair like fingers caressing your scalp. You spread your arms and looked towards the sky. The river and the sky were the same color that day, gray like slate. You said it was because the earth was getting ready for you to pass through. I didn’t know what to make of that.

You got lucky. The doctors all said if you had landed any other way, you would have broken more than your feet. You would have broken everything.

But the water received you and spat you back out. I was one of the EMTs who was waiting for you as you were dragged to shore by professional divers. You were still wearing your hospital gown from the last attempt, and it clung to your body like a second skin. Your lips were turning blue.

Did you know you woke up in the back of the ambulance? After we’d pumped the water out of your lungs? Just for a moment. You found my eyes. Yours were bright, like fire, and your fingers burned as they wrapped around my wrist even though they were cold as ice.

You said, “Did you see it?”

I shook my head, because a second ago you were flatlining. My mouth was open. There was another EMT in the back with us. He was the one who responded. “See what?”

“The light,” you whispered. Your grip slackened. Your eyes closed. We almost lost you twice on the way to the hospital.

.

Hoseok sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting area of the hospital near triage, holding a paper cup of coffee that had long-since gone cold in his fingers. He wasn’t on duty anymore but he couldn’t leave; something was keeping him glued to the chair. He'd told Hyunwoo to go back to the station without him. He couldn’t get the brightness of the boy’s eyes out of his mind. The fervor behind them.

Hoseok blinked and imagined how the jumper would have clung to the railing on the wrong side. He’d been barefoot, his feet badly cut on the bottoms even without the damage sustained from hitting the surface of the river that, from the distance he’d jumped, would have felt like concrete. Had he wanted to turn back, at the last moment? Had he seen the churning river below him and tried to will his body back over the railing? Had he let go, or had he fallen? Hoseok dropped his forehead against his hand. He hadn't slept for twenty-four hours, pulling a long shift, sustaining himself on energy drinks and disgusting cups of weak, cold coffee. His head was killing him.

He stood, walked two paces, and chucked the cup into the trash bin, exhaling shakily. He knew of exactly zero people who had survived jumping off the Mapo Bridge. It was nothing short of a miracle that the boy had survived.

He kept thinking of him as a boy, but he knew that he had to be older than he seemed. The band around his wrist had been marked for an adult ward in the hospital, pale blue instead of green, which was for minors. But he’d been small, smaller than Hoseok for certain, who filled out his uniform of a black collared shirt and black cargo pants nicely with his broad chest and shoulders. The best way Hoseok could think to describe the jumper was that he was narrow. Brittle. There had been a fragile quality to him not connected to the trauma he’d just put his body through, like if he hadn’t been strapped down to the stretcher as they sped through traffic, he might have floated away.

“Shin?” someone called. Footsteps followed. Hoseok turned to see one of the doctors in the hospital, Park Sojin, walking towards him, clipboard in hand. She had a facemask bunched under her chin, the straps tight around her ears. “Shin Hoseok?”

“Yes?” he answered.

“You were one of the EMTs who brought in the jumper, right?”

Hoseok nodded, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Sojin was as beautiful as she was terrifying, with eyes so sharp she could probably pierce through metal. He admired her.

“You saved his life,” Sojin said, gesturing for Hoseok to keep walking. She walked with him, checking something on her clipboard quickly and nodding to herself, no doubt cataloguing which patient she needed to see to next. “You did good.” 

Hoseok flushed. He’d never known what to do with a compliment or acknowledgement other than to express his gratitude and to laugh it off. So this is what he did. “Just doing my job,” he said.

“Well,” Sojin continued. “Not every team would have been able to bring that boy in alive. You know the statistics.”

Hoseok nodded again, feeling grim. He said, “I know you probably can’t tell me, but do you know his history? Why was he out there alone?”

“When someone should have been watching him at the hospital?” Sojin guessed. When Hoseok remained quiet, she sighed. “I don’t know, Mr. Shin.”

“Why wasn’t there a name written on his wrist band?”

Sojin sighed again. “He never gave us one. He never gave us anything. He said he didn't have one.” She paused and looked around the hall surreptitiously. “Do you remember the story a few years back -- missing teen, parents passed. The boy was a good kid: good grades, sang in the church choir? The search fizzled out after a few months but kept getting revived when people would call in supposed sightings.”

Hoseok did recall this, though hazily. He'd been in his last year of high school then, and thinking a lot about college. The news had kept his mother up for days, worried about Hoseok traveling alone at night to and from his part time job after school. “A little,” he admitted to Sojin.

Sojin’s eyes were hard as diamonds. Realization dawned upon Hoseok. “You think he's the boy?”

“He's about the right age,” Soojin explained. “He's in his early twenties, would have been a teenager when the boy went missing. He looks right -- just sharper. We haven't been able to confirm, but we really think -- we've taken to calling him Kihyun, and he responds to it well.” Her eyes flicked to Hoseok’s. “But you didn’t hear this from me.”

“Hear what?” Hoseok asked. Sojin grinned.

They had to part ways at the next split in the hall -- Sojin to the right down to her next patient’s room, and Hoseok to the left and out the hospital entrance to the train station, where he’d try not to fall asleep in transit on the way home. He managed to stay awake, gazing out the window past his reflection on the clear glass, mouthing the name he had learned to himself: _Kihyun_.

.

Hoseok slept for a whole ten uninterrupted hours. He lived alone in a small, well-kept apartment with do-it-yourself furniture in varying shades of white and gray. It was clean, orderly. He slept until his phone rang on the nightstand loud and shrill, and then he was squinting against the brightness of his own walls as he scrambled for the phone.

It was Changkyun.

“Hello?” Hoseok answered groggily, wiping the crust of sleep from his eyes and sitting up slowly. After long shifts, waking up again always felt like what he imagined it would feel like emerging from a coma. His ears rang.

“You skipped drinks,” Changkyun accused, though his tone was light.

Hoseok groaned, scratching at his forehead. “Shit. I'm sorry. I completely forgot.”

Changkyun chuckled. “It's fine, hyung. I figured you went home, anyway. Jooheon got to meet him and then promptly got him so smashed we had to go home early. You can meet him some other time.”

Guilt ate away at Hoseok. He'd missed the last two opportunities to meet Changkyun’s boyfriend, also. At this point, he felt like the last person on the planet who hadn't met him, Chae Hyungwon, up-and-coming model. It was a match that boggled Hoseok if he dwelled too long on it. On the surface, Changkyun and Hyungwon seemed completely opposite from each other: Changkyun spoke often about Hyungwon’s obscure taste in poetry, where Changkyun for as long as Hoseok had known him had barely managed to stay afloat through all of his literature classes in school. He was a hard science kind of guy, and Hyungwon was a romantic. And he was tall, apparently. Changkyun complained a lot about being mockingly used as an elbow rest whenever they stood next to each other.

“I'll make it up to you,” Hoseok said. “I'll treat you guys to brunch or something. I've got the next few days off, anyway.”

“That's so...fatherly of you,” Changkyun said, laughing.

“Kyunnie.” Hoseok used the nickname purposefully, knowing how it tended to sway the younger to his will.

Sure enough, Changkyun huffed out a breath and said, “Fine. I'll see if he's free on Saturday. We’ll do brunch.”

Hoseok grinned to himself. “Sounds good.”

Changkyun hummed softly in agreement. “Take care of yourself until then, okay?”

“You, too,” Hoseok said quietly. 

Changkyun hung up, and Hoseok let his phone fall to his pillow as he rolled over on his back and groaned. He felt terrible for forgetting about drinks last night. He'd gone straight home from the hospital, mind in a haze thinking about the jumper.

He'd really shaken Hoseok up. His body had clung to life in the back of the ambulance. Hoseok had been frozen by the touch of his fingers on his wrist. Hyunwoo, in the back with him, had been the one to call the shots that eventually stabilized Kihyun enough for the doctors to take over when they reached the triage center. Without Hyunwoo, Hoseok didn't think he would have been able to keep him alive. His wrist still felt cool and hot where Kihyun had held him.

“It's part of the job,” Hoseok said to himself, trying to shake Kihyun from his mind. It didn't work. He thought about him as he fixed himself breakfast and ate it, as he mindlessly watched the news, as he showered. He stared at the screen of his phone and opened up the internet app, getting so far as to typing “Kihyun missing boy news” before exiting out of the app again.

In the end, though it was his day off, he dressed in jeans and a hoodie and found himself on the train back to the hospital. 

.

Hoseok sat in the chair beside Kihyun's hospital bed. The room was still, save for the steady hum of machinery surrounding the bed and the beeping of the monitors. Kihyun's chest rose and fell in tiny movements. The assistant behind the front desk told Hoseok he was Kihyun's first -- and likely only -- visitor. There were no flowers or cards on the table beside the bed, and Hoseok thought that was depressing. He'd hate to wake up to nothing.

Under the covers, Kihyun was strapped to the frame of the bed by his wrists and ankles. Hoseok thought maybe it was because the hospital staff were afraid Kihyun would bolt when he woke up, despite his broken feet.

The hospital bed seemed to swallow the boy in it. His black hair fell across his forehead. One of the staff must have brushed it recently, because it looked soft and still fluffy. There were dark shadows under Kihyun's closed eyes, like a bruise. He looked cold, and pale. Like he was made of marble. Hoseok almost reached out to touch his cheek to see if it would be warm at his fingertips, but refrained. That would be creepy of him.

He wasn't sure why he was here, only that halfway to the hospital he hadn't been able to come up with any reasons not to come, either.

So he sat, and he let his mind wander. It was peaceful, the beeping of the monitors hypnotic. It had started to rain outside, too, and Hoseok watched the water trail down the glass on the other side.

A nurse came in and startled upon seeing Hoseok. “Oh,” she said. “I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to intrude. I thought there wouldn't be anyone here.”

“Don't let me stop you,” Hoseok said, smiling at her. She seemed to hesitate, but then stepped forward to check on the various machines situated around Kihyun's bed, ticking things off on the clipboard she pulled from the compartment beside the bed. 

“Do you know him?” the nurse asked. She sounded hopeful. 

Hoseok didn't think he should lie. “No,” he said, sinking lower into the chair and averting his eyes. “I was one of the EMTs who brought him in.”

She didn't comment if she thought it was strange Hoseok was here. She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “I see,” she said. “Will you be here tomorrow, too?”

“I don't know,” Hoseok said, even though he was almost certain he would be.

.

He returned the next morning, and the same nurse was there to check on Kihyun while Hoseok sat in the chair beside the bed. Kihyun didn't stir. The nurse informed him kindly that it was just a matter of time, now. Kihyun would wake up, she was certain of it. But Kihyun didn't wake up that day, and Hoseok couldn't stop by the hospital the next morning, since he had brunch plans with Changkyun and Hyungwon.

Hyungwon wasn't someone Hoseok would describe as ‘nice.’ He looked half asleep during their introduction and only ordered a coffee before Changkyun prodded him in the ribs and whispered theatrically that he was being rude. Then he ordered a brunch salad, with extra bacon please. 

It was strange, because Hoseok had never imagined a personality to Hyungwon when he thought of him. He'd always just pictured Changkyun's opposite, but now he could say with certainty that Hyungwon was a bit of a snob.

Then, halfway through brunch and a Bloody Mary later, Changkyun told a joke and Hyungwon smiled. He laughed. He lit up, and Hoseok stared at the change that came across the model’s face. Maybe the coffee had kicked in, or maybe what he had been seeing before was the Hyungwon before Changkyun, Hyungwon’s first defensive layer. Maybe there was a Hyungwon-with-Changkyun and a Hyungwon-without-Changkyun. Hoseok wondered if there was anyone in his own life that could define him like that.

Hyungwon spoke about a novel he was reading and a small job he had lined up later in the week, and Changkyun watched him say every word, a small smile playing on his lips the whole time. Hoseok felt simultaneously like an intruder, and like an honored guest. Whatever they had between them, they had invited Hoseok to witness it.

After, he realized that he'd enjoyed meeting Hyungwon, because anyone who could make Changkyun so happy had to be all right. The duality of feeling followed Hoseok to the train after brunch. He stopped by a flower shop and picked up something pre-made that was in one of the display cases -- a small, square vase filled with three pretty sunflower heads, their petals bright golden yellow, the empty space between them taken up by bunches of pink limonium.

“Would you like to include a card with it?” the boy behind the register of the flower shop asked him when he brought it to the counter.

“What?”

“A card,” the boy said, raising his eyebrows. “A message? Complimentary.”

“Oh, sure.”

The boy ducked under the counter and reemerged with a plain white card with gold trim. He handed Hoseok a pen. Hoseok put the pen to paper, but when he noticed the boy watching him, he slid the card down the counter until he could hide what he was writing slightly with his shoulder.

He heard the boy tsk. Hoseok struggled with what to put down onto the card. Finally, he wrote: _hope you get better soon_ , and signed it with his name. Then after a pause, he added _EMT_ in parentheses after his name.

Why had he felt the need to add that? Perhaps to justify to Kihyun why he was buying him flowers. He'd saved Kihyun's life. He knew him. He couldn't cross it out, now; that would seem even weirder.

The boy took the card from him and sealed it in a matching envelope. Hoseok hastily scrawled Kihyun's name on the back, and the attendant nestled the envelope in the bed of flowers.

“Do you want it wrapped?” he asked next. “We can put a ribbon around it.”

Hoseok shook his head. That felt excessive, and he was already questioning why he'd felt the need to buy the flowers to begin with. Because he didn't want to show up in Kihyun's room in the hospital empty-handed? Kihyun didn't even know who he was. He wondered if, when he awoke, Kihyun would remember him. “I'll just take it out like this.”

He paid, and held the vase carefully in his hands the rest of the way to the hospital. He entered the hospital and signed in at the front desk. They let him through without much scrutiny.

The room was quiet, as usual. By now, Hoseok almost didn't even notice the humming and beeping of the machines. Kihyun lay in the bed, eyes closed. The bruising had faded slightly, and color was returning to his cheeks. He'd shifted in position from the last time Hoseok visited; his head was turned to the side, and his right arm wasn't under the covers anymore, but the strap around his wrist still tied him to the bed. A nurse must have been checking the restraints recently, and left it like that.

It struck Hoseok as something very careless to do. Hoseok put the vase down on the otherwise empty table next to the bed, turning it a few times to get the angle of the vase right. In the end he decided the vase didn't fit the table, and that it was a lost cause. The flowers were too bright in the muted room. It was the thought that counted, right?

He stepped away from the vase to the side of the bed, and pulled the blankets to right over Kihyun's arm, tucking the covers in around his body. Then he sat in what he was starting to think of as his chair, twiddling his thumbs, unable to lean back fully in the seat. He felt restless.

He said, “I go back to work tomorrow. So I won't be able to come by.”

Kihyun didn't answer. Of course he didn't answer. Hoseok felt foolish. He stayed for the hour he could and left. He took the card nestled in the flowers with him.

.


	2. Chapter 2

Hoseok's next shift passed by in a blur. There was an older woman who needed to be loaded into the back of the ambulance after falling down the stairs in her home. A boy who would need some stitches after losing control of his bike. A man who had fainted in the middle of his office in the middle of the day.

On break back at the dispatch station, Hyunwoo approached him. “You okay? You seem distracted.”

“I'm fine, hyung,” Hoseok replied absently. They were sitting in the back office together at a small square table, two cups of coffee from the old machine in the corner still letting off steam between them.

“You're thinking about that boy,” Hyunwoo guessed. He was surprisingly observant and astute. “The jumper.”

Hoseok felt himself smile, and Hyunwoo flashed his own. They'd worked together now for two years, and they've both seen each other at their bests and worsts, have celebrated together over saved lives, have seen each other break down and consoled each other over losing someone in the back of their ambulance. “How'd you know?”

“You're easy to read,” Hyunwoo said. “And I get it. Some of them stick with you. There's a connection.”

“It's unprofessional.”

“Its human,” Hyunwoo shot back.

Hoseok fell silent. He thought of how still Kihyun lay on the hospital bed, how he seemed to be made of marble that first time Hoseok visited. He hadn't seemed human then, nor when he'd grabbed Hoseok by the wrist, an otherworldly light behind his eyes.

“I'll keep that in mind,” Hoseok said.

Hoseok went back to the hospital three days later. He signed in at the front desk. He started walking towards the room, his feet so familiar with the motion already that he didn't have to think about it at all.

“Hey! Mr. Shin?”

He paused and turned back to the woman behind the front desk. She smiled at him, and he lifted an eyebrow in response.

“The patient you have been visiting has been moved,” she told him. “He woke up." 

.

“Would you like to visit him?” the assistant behind the desk asked Hoseok. Hoseok stared with his mouth slightly open, and her expression grew concerned. “Mr. Shin?” 

“Yes,” Hoseok managed to say. He felt his heart jumping around wildly inside of him. Kihyun was awake. Kihyun had woken up.

“He's in long-term psychiatric care,” the assistant said kindly. “Do you know where that is?”

Hoseok swallowed around nothing. He rarely saw anything inside the hospital other than the triage center, but he knew where everything was. The psychiatric unit was the fifth floor. He'd gone there once on accident visiting Changkyun when he'd broken his leg a few years back. Where the other floors of the hospital carried a hum of noise and activity, the psychiatric unit was oppressively silent. The elevator doors opening had been the loudest thing on the floor, and everyone in the waiting area had looked up at him as he entered.

“Mr. Shin?”

“I know where it is,” Hoseok said quickly. “Thank you.”

The assistant smiled again at him and then turned back to her computer screen to work.

So Hoseok made the journey alone. His palms grew sweaty in the elevator ride up. He formulated the words he was going to say when Kihyun was in front of him. _Hello, I'm Shin Hoseok. You don't know me, but I was one of the EMTs who brought you to the hospital. I just wanted to make sure you were okay._

It sounded frail even inside of his own head. Would Kihyun even want to see him? The elevator stopped and Hoseok stepped out. The psychiatric unit was the same as he remembered, austere and quiet, and all eyes darted toward him as he entered the waiting area.

This waiting area was different from others in the hospital. You had to sign in with an attendant who sat in a little office behind a glass window that had a gap between the counter and the glass for you to push through things like paperwork and forms of identification. The door into the rest of the floor was locked, and the window in the door had an iron grid reinforcement over it. The door gave an awful screeching buzz when it was being unlocked by the attendant in the office, and there was another attendant on the other side to receive you immediately and pat you down.

Hoseok signed in. He wasn't sure what to put down exactly in the space that prompted you to name whom you were visiting. Did the rest of the hospital staff call the boy Kihyun? Did he call himself Kihyun? Hoseok took a chance and wrote that name down, let the attendant check his ID, and then sat and waited.

He just wanted to visit Kihyun. He just wanted to make sure he was okay. Hyunwoo had said this was -- well, if not normal, at least human. Approaching normal. Hyunwoo had told Hoseok he had a soft heart, and that he could see why the boy had made an impact.

It didn't take long for the attendant to call Hoseok's name. He stood, stuffing his hands into his pockets to hide how sweaty they were. He wondered what Kihyun's voice sounded like when he wasn't hypothermic and flatlining. Would Kihyun think Hoseok was a creep?

The door screeched as it was being unlocked. Hoseok winced, and the attendant on the other side chuckled. “Anything in your pockets, sir?”

“Just my hands.” Hoseok held them up, and then he remembered his wallet and phone in his back pocket. “Oh yeah, and these.” He took them out. The attendant rifled through his wallet and gave it back to him. Hoseok realized that they were in a holding area, that there was another door he had to pass through to get to the other side.

“Go ahead. He's in the first room to your left.”

Hoseok lingered at the second door. He looked back at the attendant, who stared back at him with a carefully neutral expression. “Got a lot on your mind?”

“Something like that,” Hoseok acknowledged.

“Just take it one step at a time,” the attendant advised, shrugging. Hoseok wondered how many times a day the attendant gave the same advice. Still, he nodded his thanks, and put his hand on the door, and pushed.

The floor wasn't as quiet as Hoseok expected. People were walking around, people in scrubs and people in casual clothes, pale blue bands around their wrists.

The room on the left was an open space, almost lounge-like, where groups of people were sitting around tables playing board games or just talking as attendants and nurses stood along the walls. Hoseok entered the room, scanning the space quickly for Kihyun, and his eyes landed on a boy in the corner at a small table, waving his hand at him, smiling so hard it looked like his eyes were closed.

It was Kihyun. He was in a wheelchair, and he'd changed out of his hospital gown into gray sweatpants and a black sweatshirt that was too big for him. His black hair fell across his forehead. He waved until Hoseok approached him and sat across from him at the table. There was a nurse standing practically at Kihyun's hip. Hoseok noticed another band around his wrist in addition to the pale blue one; it was red.

“Flight risk,” Kihyun said, noticing where Hoseok was looking. Hoseok flushed. Kihyun's voice was like velvet. “I guess they're worried I could build a motor or something and zoom my way out of here.”

Hoseok grinned. He hadn't expected sarcasm. All the words he'd been planning to say flew out of his mind. “Well, you'd escaped before,” he said, then felt awful for saying it. He shifted in the seat. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean--”

“You're the one who brought me flowers,” Kihyun said. He was smiling again.

“What? How did you know?”

Kihyun didn't respond, and Hoseok scrambled to put two and two together. “The nurse told you?”

Kihyun said, “I wish you'd left a card.”

Hoseok flushed. He'd wanted to but chickened out at the last moment, but Kihyun didn't know that. He remembered what he wanted to say, then. “I'm Shin Hoseok. I was one of the EMTs who brought you to the hospital. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Well,” Kihyun said with that quiet smile on his face. “Here I am.”

Hoseok hadn't thought about what to say after. They fell into silence. The nurse next to Kihyun shifted on his feet. He was about Hoseok's height, with a similar build, muscles toned under his scrubs.

“Everyone here calls me Kihyun,” Kihyun whispered. He gestured to the man beside him. “This is Jongup. He has to stay with me. I've already fallen out of my wheelchair once and gave everyone such a fright.” 

The way he said it was light like a joke, and Jongup’s lips twitched in response. “Both of your feet are in casts and you were trying to prove you can walk," the nurse said. "You really need to take it easy.”

“Minhyuk didn't believe I could walk,” Kihyun said with a pout.

“He still doesn't believe you,” Jongup said, “on account of you falling over.”

The pout didn't leave Kihyun's lips, and Hoseok laughed. He got the distinct impression that Kihyun was a sort of darling here, as Jongup tried hard not to smile and failed, as Jongup’s eyes grazed over Kihyun's form with a fondness usually reserved only for those you considered very foolish but very precious.

“I take too many risks,” Kihyun admitted without any shame. Hoseok could hear how the words were originally said by someone else, perhaps a psychiatrist. “Would you like to take me out to the courtyard?”

Hoseok's eyes flicked over to Jongup. “Is that allowed?”

Jongup shrugged. “I have to stay with you both and Kihyun has to be back in about twenty minutes for group, but it should be fine.”

There was a door to the courtyard from the lounge-like room. Really, the courtyard was the roof of the shortest building of the hospital, bookended on opposite sides by two more buildings that rose above it like towers.

Hoseok asked Kihyun if it would be all right for him to push him, and Kihyun said it would. Jongup followed at a respectable distance, close enough for him to reach out to take the reigns back from Hoseok if needed.

Outside, the air felt clean and cool. There was a consistent breeze that picked up Hoseok's hair from his forehead. He looked down at Kihyun, who was sitting forward as they crossed the threshold and turned to wind their way down the ramp. The oversized sweater had a collar that had slipped down to the tops of Kihyun's shoulder blades, and Hoseok almost tripped over the wheels of the chair at what he saw.

Kihyun's upper back was marred with lines of pink scars, angry raised skin. Some looked to be healing still, especially the closer they were to his shoulder blades. Hoseok couldn't help it -- he turned with a wide-eyed stare to Jongup behind them, as if to confirm that what he was seeing was real.

Jongup's lips had thinned into a straight line. He didn't say anything to Hoseok. Instead, he said, “Kihyun, sit back while we go down the ramp.”

Kihyun sat back obediently, and the sweater shifted to hide the scarring. Hoseok felt a release in his chest. He pushed the chair down the ramp carefully.

The courtyard reminded Hoseok of his apartment: clean, sterile, and gray. It was a simple extension of the lounge, only the chairs and tables were metal and nailed to the roof. There were a few people scattered in seats around the courtyard, each doing something solitary -- reading, writing, sketching with a piece of blunt charcoal. Kihyun waved at them as they passed. To one side, a short walking path cut through raised concrete beds of grass and carefully arranged bushes and flowers. Kihyun pointed in that direction, so they went towards it. A tall fence ran the perimeter of the roof.

Hoseok's brain at the base of his skull was starting to throb, the signs of an oncoming caffeine-related headache. That morning he'd only had a cup of weak coffee he made for himself at home. He was due for another cup. He pushed Kihyun to the edge of one of the raised beds of grass, and waited for more direction.

Kihyun didn't give any. He leaned back until he could look at Hoseok from underneath, and Hoseok wondered if Kihyun could see right up his nostrils. “Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?” Kihyun asked.

“I don't know,” Hoseok said. “To see my mom, I suppose.” It surprised him how easily he said it; it had only been a few minutes but he already felt more at ease around Kihyun than he felt sometimes with his closest friends.

“Where is she?”

Hoseok swallowed the lump in his throat. “She passed away a few months ago.”

“Oh,” Kihyun said. “Hoseok, I'm so sorry.”

He sounded it, too. Hoseok's breath caught at the way Kihyun said his name. He exhaled shakily. It had been months, and they'd both been expecting it, but he still felt the hole his mother's passing left in his chest acutely. “It's fine,” he said. “But it means I can't see her, unless I travel back in time, I guess.”

Kihyun smiled at him and then straightened in his chair, gazing out past the edge of the roof. “That's not true. She's out there, watching over you. You could join her.”

It was like a sheet of ice cracked over Hoseok when he realized what his words implied. He gripped the handlebars of the wheelchair tighter, until his knuckles were white. “Is that -- was there someone you wanted to join, Kihyun?”

Kihyun sank lower into the chair. The breeze picked up, and he sighed contentedly while Hoseok watched the wind play with the black strands of his hair. “No,” Kihyun said. “I'm just trying to go home.”

He didn't elaborate. It struck Hoseok as a very sad statement. There was a nostalgia to Kihyun's words that Hoseok couldn't follow, and he wondered if home was where Kihyun had gotten those awful scars on his back.

Hoseok's head throbbed again, and he hissed at the sharp flash of pain. Kihyun turned in his seat. His hand touched Hoseok's over the grips of the chair, feather-light and cool. He couldn't be made of marble, Hoseok thought suddenly, but perhaps silk.

“Are you okay?” Kihyun asked, his hand weightless over Hoseok's.

Hoseok grinned wryly to hide how Kihyun's touch had shocked him. “It's just a caffeine headache,” he said. “I'm too dependent.”

Kihyun grinned, too. He had two rows of perfect, small teeth. The expression calmed the butterflies Hoseok didn't even realize he had fluttering in his stomach. Kihyun squeezed his hand over Hoseok's and said, “You're too hard on yourself.”

The wind fell away and left the air still like they were in the eye of a storm. The little color there had been on Kihyun's cheeks dropped. Hoseok blinked, and then there was dark blood dripping sluggishly from Kihyun's nose. “Shit,” Hoseok cursed, wrenching his hand away and pointing. “You're bleeding.”

Kihyun turned back in his seat, a finger dabbing gently under his nose. He inspected the blood on his fingertip distantly just as Jongup came around in front of him with a thin towel he must have pulled from a pocket. He gave it to Kihyun to hold, and Hoseok watched as the white fabric slowly turned red as he pressed it against his upper lip. Kihyun sat back, visibly drained. “Sorry,” he said, somewhat muffled. “I guess that's my cue to leave.”

“There's no need to apologize,” Hoseok said hastily. Jongup had already taken the chair from him and was pushing Kihyun back toward the door into the lounge. Hoseok followed and held the door open for them to enter the building.

Jongup was explaining that he needed to check Kihyun over before his group started. Hoseok nodded, half listening. When Jongup was done explaining, Hoseok asked, “Can I -- would it be weird if I came to visit again?”

He could see Kihyun's smile even under the fabric of the towel. He said, “I'd really like that, Hoseok.”

In the elevator down to the lobby, Hoseok realized his headache had diminished to almost nothing. He smiled to himself; he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, like a burden he'd been asked to carry had finally fallen. He recalled the way Kihyun's mouth formed around his name, and fell back against the wall of the elevator, wondering what was coming over him. He felt new.

.


	3. Chapter 3

Hoseok lost track of how many times he’d visited Kihyun. He went every day that he could, and Kihyun never turned him away. Hoseok had even started to get more familiar with Jongup, whom he soon began to regard as a friend. Often, Kihyun would ask Hoseok to bring him out to the courtyard. Some days were better than others -- some days, Kihyun was bright and inquisitive and cheery. These were the days and moments Hoseok remembered when Kihyun was less vibrant, when he seemed halfway around the world in his thoughts, when he was pale and withdrawn and sluggish and the visits were short.

When Kihyun could walk a little with the help of crutches under both arms, they’d stroll together around the perimeter of the courtyard, or sometimes just up and down the long hallway of the facility if it was raining. He saw the room Kihyun shared with Minhyuk a few times, and sometimes Minhyuk was there and they would chat for a moment, but they never lingered, as Kihyun wanted to keep moving.

Hoseok told Kihyun about his mother. She’d been a wonderful woman who tried to give Hoseok everything. Her passing had been hard on him, but he’d managed. Kihyun listened to him speak without interrupting, reaching out to put a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder or over his knee when it felt like the words and feelings were getting caught in Hoseok’s throat. It felt good to talk to Kihyun. Hoseok told him about Changkyun and Changkyun’s boyfriend. He told him about Hyunwoo. He told him about his sad, empty little apartment. Nothing was off-limits.

Kihyun told him stories about Minhyuk, and stories about Jongup. He complained about the food they were served. He told Hoseok about a drama he was watching with Minhyuk that made him laugh and cry and feel everything else in between. It wasn’t until later that Hoseok realized Kihyun never shared anything about himself before the hospital, not after that first visit.

“I just don’t really get it, hyung,” Changkyun was saying to Hoseok over drinks at their favorite bar. “It’s kind of weird if you think about it?”

“Is it weirder than you and Hyungwon getting together?” Hoseok snapped. He felt frustration growing in his chest at the way Changkyun was processing what he’d told him about Kihyun, about Hoseok’s visits to the hospital. He’d expected support; not careful questioning.

“That’s different,” Changkyun said patiently. “We’re dating. You and Kihyun -- I’m happy you’ve found someone you can confide in, but.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “Hyung, he’s sick.”

Hoseok gripped his glass tighter, eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean anything by it,” Changkyun said quickly. “I just mean -- how is he supposed to help you if he doesn’t even know who he is, himself?”

“I don’t need him to help me,” Hoseok said. “I just like talking to him. And I think he’s lonely in there, Changkyun.” 

Changkyun did not look moved. He had an expression on his face usually reserved for solving difficult physics problems. “What if he gets attached? What if _you_ get attached? I know you’re still -- grieving. And I’m just worried that this is becoming something that neither of you are equipped to handle.”

“I’m not a child,” Hoseok said testily, feeling frayed at the edges. He'd thought about all these things but had never allowed himself to dwell. He liked talking to Kihyun. From what he could gather, Kihyun liked talking to him. That was more than enough for now. He gulped down the rest of his beer quickly, wanting the conversation to be over. “I don’t need you to treat me like one.”

“I know, hyung,” Changkyun said gently. He put his hand over Hoseok’s on the table. It felt nothing like Kihyun’s soft, soothing touch. “But things might be different for Kihyun. Did you think about that?”

.

This was what came up when Hoseok typed “Kihyun missing boy news” into the search bar in the internet app on his phone: articles dating back to 2010 about the initial disappearance, clips from local and national news outlets, interviews with Kihyun's classmates, and the principal of his school, and the minister who oversaw the choir he sang in at church. His parents hadn't offered any interviews, and months after he went missing, they'd passed away -- one in a car crash involving a drunk driver, the other quietly in bed after taking a handful of sleeping pills chased down by vodka.

Hoseok thought distantly that it was grief that killed them both. He was lying in bed and could feel the weight of his heart in his chest at the thought of losing a child. He'd lost a parent. Both parents, but he couldn't remember his father. But a child was different. He couldn't imagine what it would be like losing Kihyun.

He gleaned together the story after skimming through the articles and clips that came up. Kihyun disappeared between the hours of 10PM and 11PM on a Thursday night. As far as anyone knew, he'd been alone. He'd been coming home from his study group, and his friends in the group were initially thought to have been the last people to have seen him. He'd stopped by a convenience store on the way home to buy a small bag of potato chips. The cashier remembered only after the fact because Kihyun showed up on the security camera when the police traced him to the store and asked to view the footage.

There was nothing after that. No blood, no missing shoe. It was like he'd vanished into thin air. The search for him had involved entire communities. His church, his school, the organization he volunteered with on the weekends. Hoseok pulled up pictures of the missing boy and tried to imagine the round face in the photo as something sharper and thinner, the dreadful bowl cut of hair as something finer. The Kihyun he knew against the Kihyun sensationalized in the news, remembered through photos.

The search parties stopped at the one-year anniversary. The parents weren't around anymore to press the issue. Hoseok found an article dated in 2012 that mentioned Kihyun's name in connection to the disappearance of another boy, but after that, his name stopped showing up. He'd vanished online and in the hearts of reporters, also. Presumed dead.

A video clip popped up in the search results, and Hoseok clicked on it. It loaded slowly. Hoseok tapped his feet impatiently as the buffering circle faded in and out. Finally, the clip began to play.

It had been filmed with someone's phone. A group of teenagers was standing on risers in what looked like the front of a small church. They were all wearing blue shirts and khaki bottoms, the uniform of a private middle school. A hush fell over the crowd watching. Then, as one, they began to sing.

The sloped ceilings of the church amplified the sound. The group harmonized beautifully, but they sounded rather ordinary until two members of the choir stepped forward to sing, a boy and a girl.

The girl's voice was clear and high, crystalline. Her voice chimed as clear as bells.

Then the boy opened his mouth. The voice that fell out captivated Hoseok instantly. It resonated in the video and also deep inside Hoseok's chest, shaking him to his very core. It was like Hoseok had been transported there, that the boy was singing directly in front of him and to him. Hoseok wasn't religious, but he thought maybe this was what heaven would sound like. The screen shook slightly. He could hear whoever was filming whisper, “holy shit,” to themselves, and then snicker quietly. His eyes suddenly felt heavy and wet, as whatever emotion he was feeling, whatever emotion the boy’s voice had evoked in him, rose up to the surface.

The boy and girl carried the choir through to the end of the song, and the video cut off just as the audience began to applaud.

Hoseok exited out of the app, breathing shakily. He knew that voice, could hear the honeyed tone of it clearly.

The boy singing was Kihyun. 

.

Hoseok signed in with the attendant and walked back to a seat in the waiting area. He hadn't managed to sit yet before he was being called.

“Mr. Shin?” The attendant in the little office beckoned him to her, flipping through papers in front of her on the desk. Hoseok went to her, wary. Usually, she just pointed in the direction of the locked door and buzzed him through. Had there been something wrong with his identification today?

“Yes?” he asked when he was in front of her.

She said, “I'm sorry, but Kihyun isn't taking any visitors today.” She smiled a professional smile at him, impersonal and practiced.

Hoseok's heart dropped into his stomach. “What does that mean?”

“I'm not really at liberty to discuss--”

“Did he say he doesn't want to see me?” Hoseok realized he was leaning against the glass, that he was gripping the edge of the counter with both hands.

The smile on the attendant’s face turned pitying. She said, “If you come back tomorrow, I'm sure you'll be able to see him.”

But Hoseok wanted to know why not today. It felt like she was hiding something behind her smile; he couldn't fault her, as she was just doing her job, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. Her words made it seem like it hadn't been Kihyun's choice not to take any visitors today. He wracked his brain for the name of Kihyun's roommate.

“Then I'm here to visit Minhyuk,” Hoseok said. “Lee...Minhyuk.”

The attendant’s eyes widened and her smile fell. Hoseok didn't budge, and finally she nodded. “All right, Mr. Shin. Please take a seat, and I'll call you in a moment.”

.

Minhyuk was waiting for Hoseok at the small table in the corner where Kihyun usually sat. His eyes were wide and felt as though they were examining every minute detail of Hoseok’s body, from his dark hair swept back from his forehead to the jeans he’d been wearing for three days straight. Minhyuk had a sharp jawline and flat, pretty planes that made up his face. He seemed brittle in the same way Kihyun was brittle, though even sitting down Hoseok could tell Minhyuk was the tallest of them all.

“Clever,” Minhyuk said as soon as Hoseok was seated before him. “Asking for me when you couldn’t see Kihyun.”

“Is he okay?”

It was strange being here and not speaking to Kihyun. He found himself involuntarily comparing the two of them. Minhyuk had a frenetic energy to him that couldn’t be contained within his own body. It came out in the way he tapped his fingers against the surface of the table, in his knees bouncing underneath, in the way he couldn’t seem to look at Hoseok for longer than a second before his attention wandered. Kihyun exuded calm; it permeated the air around him in waves. The dips and swells of his energy felt purposeful. Hoseok started to bounce his knee under the table, mirroring Minhyuk's movements.

“He’s okay,” Minhyuk said, waving his hand in the general direction of the rooms. “He’s been sedated.”

“Sedated?” Alarm rose up within Hoseok with such intensity he almost launched out of his seat. He caught himself, though, and leaned forward instead. “Why?”

Minhyuk narrowed his eyes at him and pursed his lips. He opened his mouth slightly and ran his tongue along the backs of his teeth. “He didn’t tell you?” he asked.

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“About the detectives.” Minhyuk’s chest puffed up with self-importance. He sat straighter. He said, “They come every few days with questions. Kihyunnie usually doesn’t feel well, after.”

Of course, Hoseok thought. The detectives. If the hospital staff suspected Kihyun was the missing boy from all those years ago, they would have notified the police, and the police would have to investigate. But Kihyun hadn’t mentioned anything about this to Hoseok.

The air whooshed out of his lungs. He felt like he'd been told a great lie, and the burn of betrayal was immediate and shocking. He'd told Kihyun so much about himself over the past few weeks, and Kihyun had never once even mentioned the involvement of the police. He hadn’t burdened Hoseok with any of it. And then in the next moment Hoseok recognized how ridiculous he was being. Kihyun didn't owe him anything. Hoseok had done his job and helped to save Kihyun's life but that didn't entitle him to every thought and worry in Kihyun's mind. It didn't entitle him to his smiles, either. 

And besides, it wasn't like Hoseok ever asked. Some nights he'd play clips he found of Kihyun singing over and over again until he fell asleep but he never mentioned the missing boy in the news or anything that could be tied to Kihyun's past life when he came to visit. In his own way, he hoped to keep the two things separate. It was selfish, he realized, but it felt safer that way. He wasn't sure for whom.

“How…” Hoseok began, his voice getting caught in his throat. He cleared it. “How often do they come?”

Minhyuk flashed him a smile. He seemed to enjoy having information that Hoseok didn't. “Every few days,” he said. “They put images in Kihyun's head. They're trying to make him remember what happened to him, even if it didn't really happen.”

“What do you mean?”

Minhyuk looked at him dead on, his eyes glowing in intensity. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You must feel it,” he said. “Don't you feel it?”

It was like fingers were gripping at the edges of Hoseok's heart. He didn't know what Minhyuk could be talking about but he could feel the very beginnings of a seed taking root inside of his chest. He saw Kihyun's face and pretty smile, heard his voice rising above a dozen others in the serene arches of a church. He imagined that he was the water that day Kihyun jumped, that he formed around him upon impact and softened and said, _not yet, not today_.

“Feel what?” he whispered.

“That Kihyun is different,” Minhyuk said. “Special. That he's not like us.”

Hoseok didn't know what to say to that because he'd never agreed with any statement so intensely before in his life.

Minhyuk said, his voice low and husky, “He saved my life, did you know? His first week here. I wasn't having a good day. The worst day, actually. The downest down I had ever felt, and I'd been saving up for a while by that point. I was ready. That night I took all the pills I'd been collecting over the past couple days and went to bed. I thought it'd be peaceful. Kihyun came in a couple minutes later after he was done with a talk session. He knew right away, and as soon as I knew he knew, I didn't want to die anymore.”

Hoseok's mouth was dry. He wasn't quite sure where to look. The seed had grown into a thorny mass in his belly. “You don't have to tell me this, Minhyuk.”

Minhyuk leveled him with a stare and didn't stop. His voice took on a different, almost reverent quality as he recalled aloud what had happened. “We'd been roommates at that point for about a week. He didn't know anything about me because I'd purposefully isolated myself from everyone. My head was pounding; I was dying. But he knelt down beside the bed and touched my hand and told me everything would be okay. And then it was.” Minhyuk's smile turned sad. “He took all the poison in my body and put it in his own. I called for a nurse. They pumped his stomach that night. He didn't come back until two days later. He hadn't told them anything about what I did.”

There was a spell in Minhyuk's dark eyes. Hoseok almost fell for the manic gleam in them, before he sat back and remembered where he was. A shiver traveled up his spine. He could tell Minhyuk really believed in what he was saying, that Kihyun had somehow healed him that night. Hoseok’s mind went through myriad scenarios in the span of a second that could explain what had really happened, instead. Perhaps Minhyuk really had taken those pills, and then he had hallucinated everything. Perhaps Kihyun had taken the pills and Minhyuk had created a fantastical story around the event.

“That's…” Hoseok started. “That's impossible, Minhyuk.”

He thought Minhyuk would argue with him, adamantly try to make his point. But the strength of the other’s belief seemed absolute, and Minhyuk only smiled at Hoseok, a peaceful calm overtaking his body. His knee had stopped bouncing under the table. Minhyuk reached out to lay his hand over Hoseok's, and Hoseok thought of Kihyun, again.

“You don't believe yet,” Minhyuk said. “But you will. He's an angel, Hoseok. And he needs help.”

.


	4. Chapter 4

They called you a miracle -- did you know that? When you came home, the press were praising your resilience because there was nothing else they could write about you. So after awhile, they started speculating what had happened to you for the six years you’d been missing. You were never interested, but I hated what they wrote.

All the awful things you’d been through, how you’d come out stronger on the other end of it all. They’d compare your pictures -- before and after -- side by side. My face was usually blurred out. You started wearing sunglasses in public, and then beanies, and then you stopped trying to go outside at all.

“It doesn’t matter,” you’d always say. “None of it matters.”

But it did to me.

Because you never told me about that chunk of your life you’d been missing. You’d always change the subject or tell me not to fret. But I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything -- what made you tick, and smile, and cry, and love.

I hated everything they wrote, because to me every single word of it could have been true.

.

The beer was bitter against the back of Hoseok’s throat. He winced at the burn, and sputtered, and Jooheon cheerily slapped his back to help the drink go down more smoothly. They were sitting at a high top table for four, waiting for Changkyun and Hyungwon to show up. The bar looked a bit like a den, dark and crowded, with two different sports games playing on the two televisions above the liquor shelf. A harried waiter brought out the food Hoseok and Jooheon had ordered while waiting -- a basket of fries and other finger foods, and a kimchi pancake twice as big as Jooheon’s face.

“Okay, so,” Jooheon began, chomping on a fry, “before they get here, what do you think of Hyungwon?”

“Tall,” Hoseok said immediately, and Jooheon laughed. “I don’t know -- he seems nice. Do you think it will last?”

“I hope so,” Jooheon said. “Changkyun really likes him, even though he pretends half of the time that he’s annoyed with him. I think Hyungwon likes that though.” Jooheon stuck his tongue out of his mouth, pulling a disgusted face. “I personally don’t get it.”

“Well, you’re not the one dating him.”

“Thank god.”

“Yes?” Changkyun appeared at Hoseok’s elbow, followed closely by Hyungwon. “You called?”

“That joke is lame and you know it,” Jooheon said as they greeted each other with half-hugs and half-handshakes. Hyungwon climbed onto the stool next to Hoseok and opposite Jooheon, managing to make the effort look like a dance move. Changkyun clambered onto the remaining stool, much less gracefully.

“You guys ordered already,” Changkyun said. He reached for the menu anyway.

“Just snacks,” Hoseok said. “You can’t expect us to starve waiting for you.”

Hyungwon laughed, causing Hoseok to look twice at him. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Yeah, hyung,” Changkyun mocked. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Oh god,” Jooheon said. “There are two of them.”

That earned him a shove by the youngest, and Jooheon’s gaze widened at both Hoseok and Hyungwon as he pointed at Changkyun in disbelief and accusation. “Hyungwon!” he called. “You’re corrupting him! He used to be so sweet.”

Hyungwon smirked and said, “He’s still sweet to me.”

The waiter came by and they ordered another round of beers for the table. After the long, exhausting shifts that Hoseok pulled, it was nice to be able to get together with some of his closest friends (and Hyungwon, he supposed) and talk about nothing.

The teasing and the lightness of the conversation were familiar, and soon enough they had finished the food and ordered another round of drinks. Jooheon’s cheeks were pink and his eyes were shining as he regaled them with a story of how he was attempting to woo a girl from one of his classes into a date. This led Hyungwon to offer his networking skills to set Jooheon up with one of his model friends, and they ducked their heads together over Hyungwon’s phone to scroll through pictures of single girls -- and a few boys he thought Jooheon might hit it off with -- that he knew.

Changkyun turned to Hoseok, his eyes clear. Hoseok knew he didn’t like to drink that much to begin with. “How are you doing, hyung?” he asked.

He was always asking. Ever since Hoseok’s mother passed, Changkyun had always been sure to ask, to be there for him if he needed. He was like the little brother Hoseok had always wanted. “I’m okay,” Hoseok said, and he found he almost meant it.

Changkyun quirked an eyebrow. The problem with being so close with someone was that it was hard to lie to them and get away with it. “Have you still been visiting Kihyun?”

Hoseok tensed, and then willed himself to relax. He knew Changkyun was just worried about him.

“I went this morning, actually,” Hoseok said. “But I couldn’t see him.”

“Why not?”

Hoseok shrugged. He didn’t feel like telling Changkyun the reason why, because he wouldn’t be able to lie, and then it would all come spilling out of him: he’d have to tell Changkyun about the research he’d been doing about the missing boy, about how at night he slept to the resonant notes in Kihyun’s voice.

“I talked to his roommate a bit,” Hoseok said instead. “Minhyuk. Seems nice.”

“What did you guys talk about?”

Again, Hoseok said nothing. He sipped at his beer thoughtfully, the alcohol warming through his system. Hyungwon and Jooheon were still looking at the pictures on the model’s phone. Hoseok licked his lips. He said, “Do you believe in angels?”

It felt like air and sound had been sucked out of the bar. Hoseok could feel three pairs of eyes on him, and he looked at Changkyun guiltily, wondering how such an innocuous question could warrant such a sudden response.

Changkyun said, “Hyung.”

Hoseok put his chin in his hands, frowning. “I mean it. D’you believe in angels? Like, that they exist and walk around with us?”

“I don’t know,” Jooheon said. “Seems creepy to me. Like ghosts. I mean, I definitely believe in ghosts, but I don’t _want_ to believe in them. Because: creepy.”

Hyungwon looked contemplative. “Say more,” he said. Changkyun sighed and bit into his bottom lip. He looked worried, again. Hoseok understood. He wanted to tell Changkyun not to worry, that this wasn’t about his mother, not again. But he wasn’t exactly sure that was the truth, either.

“Maybe they aren’t, like, on another plane watching over us. Maybe they look just like us,” Hoseok offered. Jooheon and Changkyun were giving him blank looks, though, and he felt childish for even bringing it up, for thinking about what Minhyuk had told him. It couldn’t be real.

But Hyungwon was leaning forward. “If angels exist,” Hyungwon said. “Does that mean devils do, too?”

Jooheon didn’t like that at all. He pouted and shook his shoulders. “Guys, stop,” he whined.

Hyungwon said, “I don’t know if I believe in angels or devils, really. But I think there’s _something_ out there. Something that explains the unexplainable.”

“Oh, here we go,” Changkyun said, rolling his eyes. Hoseok guessed they’d had conversations about this topic before.

“It’s just a feeling, right?” Hyungwon insisted. “That’s all. I don’t know if I buy into all the religiosity but there’s something about faith that’s really human and wonderful. Don’t you think so?”

Hoseok closed his eyes and saw Kihyun. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly it.”

.

Kihyun looked tired the next time Hoseok saw him. The dark circles under his eyes seemed like they had been painted on, and his hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed for days. Still, he smiled at Hoseok when he eased himself into the seat in the corner, carefully placing his crutches against the wall. Jongup was there again, close, watching Kihyun. 

“Hello,” Kihyun said. The way he said it made Hoseok want to cry. Things were different. Hoseok had learned things about Kihyun without meaning to, without his consent, and now he didn’t know what to do.

“How have you been?” Hoseok asked.

Kihyun sighed shakily. He really did look tired. Hoseok wondered if it was because of the police or because of something else. “I've been better,” Kihyun admitted. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Hoseok wanted to scream. They were treating each other like strangers. He kept thinking about what Minhyuk had said. He pictured Kihyun on the floor of his room, between the two beds, pale and lifeless and full of poison. He wondered how many times Kihyun had tried to take his own life. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Minhyuk told you about the police,” Kihyun said.

Hoseok nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have waited for you to tell me.”

“It’s alright,” Kihyun said. “I don’t know if I would have been able to tell you. Somehow, I wanted to keep that part hidden from you, you know?”

Hoseok did know. He thought about the links to articles and clips still up on his laptop at home of the missing boy, of Kihyun. “They’re trying to help you,” Hoseok said.

Kihyun shook his head. “There’s nothing I can say that will satisfy them. They want me to remember something that didn’t happen.”

Hoseok realized that whatever it was that Minhyuk believed, Kihyun believed, also. He felt his heart breaking. He gripped the armrests on his chair and tried to remember to exhale. “So what really happened?”

Kihyun met his eyes across the table. He shook his head, smiling softly to himself. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he said.

“I don’t really know what to believe,” Hoseok said.

“I’ve been having this dream,” Kihyun said, seemingly disconnected from the conversation they’d been having. He looked at something Hoseok couldn’t see over his left shoulder. “You’re in it, Hoseok,” Kihyun said. “But I don’t know what it means.”

“Dreams are just your subconscious trying to make sense of what happened during the day,” Hoseok said. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I thought you said you don’t really know what to believe.”

Hoseok fell silent. He didn’t know what to say to make things better. He’d forgotten that Kihyun was a patient here, but Minhyuk had reminded him. He couldn’t look Kihyun in the eyes.

“You think I'm crazy,” Kihyun said. That jabbed Hoseok right in the chest, and he winced visibly, but couldn't respond quickly enough. Kihyun shook his head again. He didn't look hurt; he looked disappointed. “I’m sorry, but I’m really tired. I think I’m going to go, now.”

Hoseok nodded, and watched as Kihyun stood slowly. He wanted to say something, but his brain wasn't forming any helpful words or sentences. He just kept seeing Kihyun in the back of his ambulance, his hand on Hoseok's wrist, that fire in his eyes.

Kihyun's joints seemed to ache. He winced when he managed to get the crutches under his arms. Jongup helped him, but didn’t follow him out of the lounge. They both watched the sharp points of Kihyun’s shoulder blades work as he left.

Jongup sat in the seat Kihyun had vacated. He was frowning, and Hoseok matched his expression. A few different emotions passed through Jongup’s face as the nurse tried to piece together what he wanted to say.

“He believes he’s an angel,” Jongup said finally. “It’s dangerous, because he believes he needs to get home, and that there’s only one way to get there. I don’t really understand why or how, but I know you care about him, so I wanted to say this: Please don’t encourage the delusions. We’re all trying to keep him alive, here.”

Hoseok’s stomach felt like it had turned to stone. He nodded, his neck stiff and uncooperative. He asked, “What about the police?”

“We’re working with them. They want to find whoever did this to Kihyun, and we want Kihyun to remember who he is. This break with self -- it’s not unfounded that Kihyun has created this story to surround himself in. Sometimes it feels safer than...remembering the trauma.”

Hoseok nodded again. He knew all of these things. Read about them. He’d taken a psychology class a couple years ago in school. He thanked Jongup for helping him.

That night, he dreamed, also. Kihyun was in it, standing on the railing of a bridge. He called out to Kihyun not to jump, but it was too late. Hoseok’s heart plummeted down to his feet as he ran to the railing, catching himself against it. The water churned below him; he hadn’t heard a splash.

Kihyun was standing above the frothing river. Floating. He looked up at Hoseok, smiling, and said, “What do you believe?”

Hoseok's ears rang. The light was suddenly blinding. Hoseok closed his eyes and saw the silhouette of wings burned into the backs of his eyelids as he awoke.

.


	5. Chapter 5

The police came by more and more often. Hoseok knew, because even if Kihyun didn’t say anything, he looked exhausted. He was shrinking with every visit. Something was haunting him behind his eyes, and it began to haunt Hoseok, also.

Jongup told Hoseok they were trying out a few different prescriptions with Kihyun, to combat things like panic, and intrusive thoughts. It all seemed the same to Hoseok. Kihyun just looked numb. Barely there. Hoseok hated it.

He wanted the old Kihyun back, sarcastic and quick to smile. He couldn’t help but feel the loss of him was partly his fault.

.

Kihyun put his hand in the crook of Hoseok’s elbow as they strolled the perimeter of the courtyard. Hoseok could anticipate every loose stone in the path they walked, he was so familiar with it. Less familiar was he with Kihyun’s weight against him. They had to walk slowly, since Kihyun’s feet still felt new. He was wearing soft slippers and had to take a break every few steps. Jongup wasn’t following as closely anymore, though Hoseok could always see him out of the corner of his eye.

When they’d rounded a corner, Kihyun pulled Hoseok to sit with him on the edge of one of the raised beds of grass, on the concrete. They were facing the skyline of the rest of the city, and Hoseok wondered if Kihyun remembered anything about his life outside of these hospital walls.

The wind whistled past his ears.

“Why do you keep coming back?” Kihyun asked.

Hoseok turned to him sharply. Kihyun’s hand was still in the crook of Hoseok’s elbow, small and light. Hoseok took his fingers in his with his other hand. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You’ve become important to me.”

Kihyun smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I feel like I’m in a dream. I’m not sure what’s real anymore.”

“What do you mean, Kihyun?”

“The police asked me today if I remembered where I was being kept. They’re so sure I was being kept somewhere. So I saw something. A bed. A door. A lock. It felt real, but I couldn’t remember if it was because they’d asked me about it before, or if I was really remembering. I can almost hear the footsteps through the walls of someone approaching. Who? My captor?”

Kihyun’s hand was shaking in Hoseok’s. Hoseok shushed him, drawing Kihyun’s head to his chest and cradling him in his arms. Kihyun went to him like he'd curled up against him a million times before. It felt right. “They’re trying to help you,” Hoseok said. He felt like he’d said these exact words so many times. He wondered if they carried any meaning anymore. “Let them help you, Kihyun.”

“But what if it’s not real?” Kihyun asked. He clung to Hoseok tight.

“I know it’s scary, Kihyun, but if you remember what happened to you, the police will be able to catch whoever did it. So they can’t do it again.”

Suddenly he was on the ground, a sharp pain at his temple where his head had cracked against the concrete. Kihyun’s hand was outstretched, his expression morphing from anger to shock to despair. Hoseok groaned and sat up, feeling dizzy.

“I’m sorry,” Kihyun said, trying to get down onto his knees. He winced as he curled his feet under him. “I’m so sorry, oh my god. I didn’t mean to--” He touched Hoseok’s hand, and cupped Hoseok’s cheek in his palm. There were tears in his eyes.

Then Jongup was there, wrenching Kihyun to his feet and away from Hoseok. Kihyun cried out in surprise and then in pain as Hoseok slowly rose to stand.

“Are you okay?” Jongup asked Hoseok. He had his hand around Kihyun’s upper arm tightly.

“I’m fine,” Hoseok said. “It was an accident.” The dizziness was gone. Hoseok blinked a few times to get rid of the residual throbbing in his head. The sharp pain had disappeared, also. He smiled to show he really wasn’t hurt. “It was an accident,” he said again.

Kihyun’s head lolled forward onto his chest. Jongup caught him with his other arm before he could collapse as Hoseok cursed and stepped forward to help, but Jongup was quick, lowering Kihyun to the ground and onto his side. He kept his hand under Kihyun’s head to support his neck.

“Shit,” Hoseok said. “Shit, what do I do?” All of his training left him in an instant, seeing Kihyun like this. There was blood trickling steadily and slowly from Kihyun’s nose.

“Don’t panic,” Jongup said. “He’ll be fine. Look, help is already on the way.” Jongup pointed with his free hand. He was breathing hard in an attempt to look calm for Hoseok.

Hoseok stepped back as a nurse came by with a stretcher. They loaded Kihyun onto it.

“He’s just fainted,” Jongup said to Hoseok reassuringly. He patted Hoseok on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine. Come back tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Hoseok said, unable to take his eyes off of Kihyun as they pushed him away, back into the building. He might have imagined it, but he could see a bruise forming over the crest of Kihyun’s cheek, near his temple, red and purple. Hoseok lifted his fingers to prod at where the pain had been sharpest when he fell. The bruise never had the chance to swell.

.

“Hyung,” Changkyun said. “Hyung, you’re not making any sense.”

Hoseok was pacing his small living room, wearing a circular path into the wooden floors. He had Changkyun on speaker, his phone in the very center of his coffee table.

“Do you need me to come over?” Changkyun asked.

“I must be seeing things. What’s that phenomenon where you learn something and then your mind makes sure you fulfill it? Or, like, when you meet someone new and suddenly you see them everywhere? It’s like that.”

“Did you meet someone new?” Changkyun sounded worried. Hoseok thought he should be. He knew he wasn’t making any sense, as his younger friend had mentioned. Hoseok pulled at the collar of his shirt. Everything felt too tight. He touched his temple again to make sure there was no sign of swelling. There wasn’t.

“Kihyun,” Hoseok said. “Kihyun healed me.”

Changkyun sighed. “Hyung--”

“I fell. No wait -- he pushed me--”

“He _pushed_ you?!”

“And I hit my head. I felt it. I felt pain. But then he touched me, and it was gone.”

“Why did he push you?”

“Minhyuk said he healed him, too, you know? So maybe it’s not crazy. It _sounds_ crazy--”

Changkyun said louder and more forcefully: “ _Why did he push you?_ ”

Hoseok paused in his ramblings, in his attempt to make sense of things aloud. “What? Oh, I don’t know. I said something to upset him.”

“I don’t think you should visit him anymore, hyung,” Changkyun said.

“I can’t stop now,” Hoseok said breathlessly. “I didn’t believe Minhyuk. I didn’t believe him. But now…”

“You sound crazy,” Changkyun said. “Healing powers? He hurt you. He’s dangerous. Hoseok, please. If this is about your mother--”

“It’s not about my mom!” Hoseok shouted. Changkyun fell quiet. Hoseok never yelled at him. The bubble of anger and wild incredulousness burst inside of Hoseok, leaving him feeling empty instead. “I’m sorry, Changkyun.”

A moment passed in silence.

“No,” Changkyun said. “I’m sorry, hyung. I’m just worried about you. Miracles? Come on. That’s insane.”

Hoseok deflated. He threw himself onto his couch and sank into the cushions. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, so that Changkyun would stop worrying. “I just got caught up. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“You can call me any time, hyung,” Changkyun said. “For anything.”

Hoseok thanked him as he hung up. Changkyun didn’t believe him; he wasn’t even sure if he believed himself. 

.

Hoseok worked the next three days. He pushed himself to think only about the next moment in front of him, but his mind kept going back to Kihyun, to that utter despair on his face, to the feeling of his fingers on Hoseok's cheek. Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he asked Hyunwoo during a quick break if he believed in angels.

Hyunwoo raised his eyebrows at him. “Of course I do,” he said easily.

“Why?” Hoseok asked, eyes wide. They were outside, and the sky was a clear, pure blue.

“Hope,” Hyunwoo said. “I believe because then I can hope that, if for some reason we fail in our duties, there's something else watching over the people we load into our ambulances.”

“Do you think you've ever met one?” Hoseok asked next.

Hyunwoo smiled, his eyes narrowing. He turned his face toward the sun. “Dozens,” he said.

.

The attendant in the little office frowned when Hoseok approached, making him slow his steps. By now, she was familiar with him, though they'd never exchanged more than a few courteous greetings and questions. She waited until he was at the window before shaking her head, and Hoseok's breath stopped. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked. Dread made his stomach turn to lead.

“I don't know if it's good to see him today, Mr. Shin.”

Relief flooded his body. Kihyun was still alive. He hadn't realized until she spoke that he'd been fearing the worst.

“What does that mean?”

“He's...not well.” She looked away, and Hoseok stepped closer to the glass.

“All the more reason for me to see him.”

She bit her lip. “I just don't want you to get discouraged.” When she met his eyes, there was pity in hers. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even said anything.”

“No,” Hoseok said, smiling gently at her. “I appreciate it.”

He wasn't directed to the lounge room this time. A nurse walked him directly to Kihyun's room. Jongup was sitting outside of it, the door cracked open a sliver. He stood as Hoseok approached. “I told him you were coming,” he began, “but…” He trailed off, eyes sliding toward the crack in the door. “He tried to hurt himself yesterday. Keep the door open,” he finished finally.

Hoseok nodded and tried to prepare himself for what was on the other side of the door. It couldn't be so bad if Kihyun was still alive, still able to be visited, right? He pushed the door open and stepped inside, easing it close to shut again.

There were two small beds in the room, a nightstand between them. Two sets of drawers stood at the ends of the beds, but other than that, the room was bare. Hoseok looked to Minhyuk's side of the room, finding it oddly clean and empty. Kihyun was in his own bed, curled up on his side facing the wall, the covers pulled up to his cheeks so that all Hoseok could see was the shape of his body under the blankets and his puff of black hair on his pillows. It was quiet.

“Kihyun?” Hoseok tried. There were no chairs in the room. He sat tentatively on the edge of Kihyun's mattress.

Kihyun didn't answer, but his body curled tighter under the covers. Hoseok resisted the urge to place a palm over the curve of Kihyun's hips.

“Are you awake?” Hoseok asked.

He heard Kihyun sniffle and clear his throat. Hoseok's heart clenched inside of him.

“Yes,” Kihyun whispered, his voice raw.

“What happened, Kihyun?”

“I almost did it,” Kihyun said, still facing the wall. “I was so close.”

Hoseok couldn't breathe. “Did what?”

But he knew what Kihyun was talking about. He wanted to turn the other boy over and inspect every inch of him for hurts. He wondered what he'd find, and how extensive the pain would be for them both. The scars on Kihyun's back were probably not the only ones, Hoseok thought miserably. And then there were the scars you couldn't see.

“Minhyuk is gone,” Kihyun said. He heaved for breath, choking on a sob. “He was moved two days ago.” And then Kihyun was crying. He turned finally for Hoseok to see his face. He was pale, the dark circles back under his eyes, his lips almost colorless. Crying made spots of pink appear on Kihyun's cheeks, on the tip of his nose.

“Kihyun,” Hoseok sighed, feeling his eyes begin to water also. Kihyun looked so wretched, and then he reached for Hoseok with his arms outstretched. His wrists were bandaged heavily, both of them. Hoseok's heart sank again. “What did you do to yourself?”

“It wasn't deep enough,” Kihyun said. Hoseok gathered him into his arms, sitting up higher on the bed. He eyed the crack in the door and met Jongup's gaze, but the nurse just nodded and turned away. “I saw you, in the last moment. The you in my dreams. It surprised me.”

Hoseok didn't know what to say to that. Kihyun had buried his face against Hoseok's neck, and Hoseok held him tighter. Kihyun's hair hadn't been washed, and his skin was dry and cool, and he felt as weightless as air in Hoseok's arms. Hoseok breathed him in anyway, and cried. There was still a fading bruise on Kihyun's temple that should have been on Hoseok's. He kissed him there. Kihyun shuddered.

“I wish you would stop hurting yourself,” Hoseok said, a prayer, a desperate plea.

Kihyun sobbed against him. “Why?”

“Because you're important to me,” Hoseok said. “Because there's still life in you.”

Kihyun said, “I died six years ago on the day I disappeared.”

A chill snaked down Hoseok's body, and a hush fell over the room. Kihyun was crying silently, trying hard to even his breathing. “No,” Hoseok said. “You're still here, with us. With me. You've just got to stay.”

“I'm tired,” Kihyun whispered.

“I know,” Hoseok said. “I know, Kihyun. But you're strong, too. Can I -- can I show you something?”

Kihyun shifted against him. After a moment, he nodded. Hoseok twisted in order to keep Kihyun against him as he pulled his phone from his back pocket. He kept an arm around Kihyun's waist while unlocking the screen and pulling up YouTube. He tapped on one of his recently watched videos, and it started to play.

Kihyun didn't say anything as the choir started to sing. There was no sign of recollection. But he watched. The sounds of the choir filled up the room even through the tiny speakers on Hoseok's phone. The girl began to sing, and then the boy.

Hoseok watched Kihyun for -- anything. Any sign that he remembered, or recognized what he was seeing. But there was nothing. Kihyun's eyes had glazed over. When the song ended, silence rang in Hoseok's ears.

Hoseok tightened his arm around Kihyun's waist. “That's you,” he said gently.

“That _was_ me,” Kihyun said.

That was enough for Hoseok. He nodded and kissed the crown of Kihyun's head. “The truth is,” Hoseok said, “you became important to me, and now I can't imagine a world without that voice -- _your_ voice -- in it. You sing like an angel, Kihyun, and I'm starting to think you could really be one. It doesn't matter to me right now. I just know I don't want you to leave yet.”

Kihyun sank into him, like all the strength had left his body. That was okay. Hoseok was prepared to bear the weight. He would believe in Kihyun if that was what the boy needed from him.

Kihyun's voice was small and hopeful when he spoke. “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“Of course,” Hoseok said. He realized that tears were still rolling down his cheeks. He smiled.

.


	6. Chapter 6

Kihyun told the hospital and the police he remembered everything he could. He pointed them in the direction of a house outside of the city, and this is what they found: an old, boarded-up home with an immaculate basement, a bedroom that looked like it belonged in a doll’s house, a deadbolt in the door. Traces of blood and bleach on the floor, curtains, sheets. This was where Kihyun had spent six years of his life.

There was a body in the basement, decomposing. Time of death estimated to be around the time Kihyun was found the first time -- the first time he landed himself in the hospital. Kihyun identified the body as the man who had kept him. He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t want to, or need to. His story, as far as the police were concerned, had come full circle, had closed. They put his file away.

The press jumped, like a pack of wolves on a downed lamb. They wanted to know everything, but Kihyun shut his doors. They published pieces anyway -- opinions and speculations, extrapolations from facts. Hoseok read them all. He’d bring pieces for Kihyun to read, to ask him for confirmation or denial, but Kihyun had said all he wanted to say. He told Hoseok it didn’t matter. Kihyun took his meds on schedule, participated in group sessions, and smiled more. He stopped lingering at the perimeter of the roof courtyard. He slept, and Hoseok hoped.

Hoseok changed the sheets on his bed. He refolded all of his clothes in his dresser to make space. He bought an extra pair of slippers to wear around the apartment. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until Changkyun pointed it out to him.

“He’ll need a place to stay when he’s out,” Hoseok explained. “To get back on his feet.”

Changkyun sighed. “And that’s with you?”

Hoseok shrugged and reasoned, “He doesn’t have anyone else.” He paused. “Will you help me? I can’t -- I’ll have long shifts at work. And he might need someone around.”

Changkyun didn’t say no, but it took him a couple days to say yes.

Hoseok asked Kihyun the next time he went to visit him if he would like to stay with him. Kihyun’s smile was almost shy -- oh, how he blushed and curled his shoulders, biting at his lip. “You would do that for me?”

And Hoseok said, “Yes. Anything you need.”

.

Kihyun was discharged from the hospital on a quiet Tuesday morning. Hoseok picked him up in Hyunwoo’s car, because he hadn’t wanted to take his chances with the trains or in a cab. Kihyun had a bag with him, of ill-fitting clothes, the toothbrush the hospital gave him, orange bottles filled with his prescriptions, and little else. He climbed into the passenger seat, and Hoseok threw him an old hoodie to put on over his head. “You might want to pull the hood up,” he said.

Reporters had been denied access to the building, but they were waiting at the main gates of the hospital, their cameras flashing and their mics tapping against the glass windows of the car. Hoseok had to slow the car to an excruciating crawl to get through the crowd. Kihyun sank lower into his seat, hood up, knees pulled up to his chest. Hoseok turned on the radio in an effort to drown out the noise of all the questions the reporters were asking, but he could still make them out over the din.

When they made it through, Kihyun stared out the window for the rest of the drive. He was quiet as they pulled into the garage next to Hoseok’s apartment building. He held his bag to his chest and followed Hoseok into the elevator and down the hall. Hoseok didn’t know how to break the silence. He tried to put himself into Kihyun’s shoes -- how overwhelming it must be, first to remember what had happened to him and then to re-experience the world again, all the sights and sounds, how awful all the attention would be, all the questions that asked him to recount the trauma, every tiny detail.

And then there was the other thing. The thing they had stopped talking about. The bruise had faded from Kihyun’s temple. Hoseok wondered if it had ever really been there. It all seemed so fantastical now, especially faced with the reality they were dealing with in the present.

Whatever Kihyun was, Hoseok thought, didn’t matter. Because he was alive, and Hoseok was going to do whatever he could to keep him so.

Kihyun stepped into Hoseok’s apartment. Hoseok followed, closing the door softly behind him. He watched as Kihyun slid the hood down and walked forward until he’d almost crossed the threshold. He stopped himself, though, stooping slightly to take off his shoes. Hoseok grinned. He’d laid out the slippers this morning. Kihyun, barefoot, stepped into them. He wiggled his toes. 

“Welcome home,” Hoseok said.

Kihyun turned and smiled at him. It was like seeing the sun for the very first time.

.

Hoseok had converted his living room into a bedroom. He thought Kihyun would like to take the actual bedroom, and their first night passed peacefully. In the morning, he found Kihyun in the kitchen, staring at a box of cereal and container of milk he had taken out of the fridge.

Hoseok rubbed at his eyes. He knew without looking that his hair was sticking up in every direction. “What are you up to?” he asked Kihyun.

“Breakfast,” Kihyun said, but he didn’t move.

Hoseok went into the kitchen and got out two bowls from his cabinet. He poured the cereal in first, and then the milk. Kihyun watched him. He couldn’t take the bowl Hoseok held out to him because his hands were shaking.

“Hey,” Hoseok said. “It’s okay.”

“It’s so normal,” Kihyun said. His eyes glistened with tears. “There's cereal and milk. Windows. I can switch the lights on and off. Your bed was so comfortable.”

Hoseok put the bowls back on the counter and drew Kihyun to him. He felt their hearts beating against each other in their chests, Kihyun's a rapid, frantic tapping and his own a slower, steadier thump. He felt Kihyun sigh.

“Take it easy,” Hoseok said. “One thing at a time.”

.

The second night, Hoseok awoke to awful screaming, like an animal’s, coming from his bedroom. His heart jumped and jolted as he rose and ran to the door, throwing it open so hard that the doorknob left a dent in the wall as the door slammed against it.

Kihyun was writhing in bed, the sheets twisted around his body. The scream had died in his throat but he was still crying, throwing his head back and forth. Hoseok froze. He had read somewhere that it wasn’t advisable to wake people up from night terrors, but he hated the helpless feeling that came over him, watching Kihyun try to settle back into sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed as Kihyun’s thrashing slowed, wondering if it would be too much to hold Kihyun’s hand.

Then Kihyun sat up. His eyes were open, but Hoseok knew immediately that he was seeing something entirely different from the room he was in, from Hoseok in front of him. The other boy threw himself out of bed, crashing with bruising force onto his hip and then scrambling back up onto his feet. “No!” he shouted, as Hoseok managed to wrangle an arm around Kihyun’s waist in an attempt to hold him still, to keep him from hurting himself more.

He kicked and screamed and cried. Hoseok held on, every scream producing another fracture in his heart. Eventually, and after too long, Kihyun tired and stopped struggling. He was sobbing, and as the sounds faded Hoseok could finally make out what he was saying.

“Hoseok...no…”

Hoseok lifted him and placed him back on the bed. Kihyun clung to him, rubbing his face into Hoseok’s shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s okay,” Hoseok said. “You had a bad dream.”

Kihyun sniffed, his words coming out choked. “It wasn’t a dream. You were there. You’re important. I just don’t know what it means.”

Hoseok shushed him, carding his fingers through Kihyun’s hair. He stayed with him that night, and every night after that he could.

.


	7. Chapter 7

“Changkyun, please,” Hoseok said, biting into his lips. His phone was hot against his ear as he sat against his headboard. “Just for the night. I’ll be back first thing in the morning after my shift.”

“I don’t know…” Changkyun hedged. He’d been toeing the edge of a decision for the past twenty minutes, asking question after question -- Does Kihyun know when to take his meds? Does he need constant supervision? What if he gets violent? All of it painted a picture that Changkyun had no idea who Kihyun was, what he was like, but there were few other people Hoseok would trust in his apartment with someone so precious. The other person he might have considered calling was Hyunwoo, but Hyunwoo would be working with him.

“He might want to watch TV with you,” Hoseok said quietly, trying to hold back his exasperation since he was asking such a big favor. “Sometimes he has nightmares. That’s all. He can take care of himself. I just don’t want him to be alone.”

He listened to Changkyun breathing on the other end. Kihyun was still asleep, curled up in Hoseok’s lap, dead to the world. They’d gone to a referred clinic for a counseling session yesterday, Kihyun wearing one of Hoseok’s hoodies and sunglasses and a mask covering the lower half of his face. Then, he’d had a bad attack in the middle of the night, so Hoseok had given him something that would help him sleep again.

Hoseok ran his fingers through Kihyun’s hair. Kihyun shifted closer, and Hoseok fretted over what was to come in the next few hours. In the evening he’d leave for work, an overnight shift; he’d been reminding Kihyun for the past few days.

“Can I bring Hyungwon?” Changkyun asked.

Hoseok sighed and leaned back against the headboard, relieved at Changkyun’s decision. “Of course.”

The day passed too quickly. Kihyun awoke a few hours later, groggy from the chemicals still in his system, sleep-soft and lazy. Hoseok was content to lay in bed with him, telling himself this was what Kihyun needed: to be held, to be loved.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

“I know it’s well past noon,” Kihyun mumbled in response, burying his face into Hoseok’s pillow. He was in one of Hoseok’s old t-shirts and a pair of sweats. They hadn’t had a chance to go shopping for clothes, because every time Kihyun stepped a foot out of the front door he was swarmed by reporters, though the sheer numbers of them were slowly dwindling day by day. They might have tried to go yesterday after their visit to the clinic, but Kihyun had been too exhausted. Hoseok was larger than Kihyun, but his clothes fit just fine as long as he was just lounging around the apartment.

Hoseok brushed his fingers through Kihyun’s hair.

Kihyun asked, “What did Changkyun say?”

“He said he’ll come over tonight with his boyfriend, Hyungwon. You’ll like them. They’re good people.”

“You’re good people,” Kihyun said, “so anyone associated with you would be the same.”

Hoseok grinned. “That means you, too.”

Kihyun peeked at him, half of his face still hidden in the pillow. From his eyes, Hoseok could tell he was smiling.

.

Changkyun and Hyungwon arrived in the early evening, toeing off their shoes at the door. Hoseok hugged them both and thanked them. Hyungwon looked to be still asleep, his eyes half-hooded, wearing a sweater that was too large on his skinny frame. Changkyun was in a hoodie and sweats, and he put the duffel bag they’d brought between them on the couch in the living room.

Hoseok had ordered jja jang myun for everyone for dinner, and promised breakfast, too, when he returned. “There’s some more food in the fridge, too. Kihyun tried to make some side dishes earlier. They’re actually pretty good? Um, there are some numbers on the fridge but I guess you already have my cell, so. Just make sure he actually goes to sleep?”

Hyungwon snickered and sprawled out over the couch, seemingly already comfortable with the new environment. “It’s like we’re babysitting your kid.” Changkyun sat in front of him and elbowed him in the ribs, and Hyungwon grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like it was a bad thing. Just -- you care a lot.”

The tension in Hoseok’s shoulders seeped out and he perched himself on the arm of the couch. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I do.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Changkyun asked.

“Bedroom,” Hoseok said. “He, uh, was a little nervous about meeting you guys. I’ll tell him to come out.”

But the door to the bedroom opened then, and Kihyun’s head poked out from the doorframe. Hoseok smiled and beckoned Kihyun over, completely endeared as he watched Kihyun open the door wider and slip out and walk with light footsteps over to them. He stopped next to Hoseok, fiddling with his hands. When he noticed what he was doing, he tried stuffing his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie -- Hoseok's hoodie -- but took them out again at introductions, remembering his social graces.

Hoseok gestured between them. “Changkyun, Hyungwon -- this is Kihyun. Kihyun, Changkyun and Hyungwon.”

Changkyun leaned forward to shake Kihyun’s hand, his lips curled into a gentle smile. Hyungwon sat up, squinting at Kihyun. Hoseok felt Kihyun shift nervously.

Hyungwon’s eyes widened. He said, as he shook Kihyun’s hand, “Have we met before?”

Kihyun shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You look really familiar.”

“My picture’s been in the news for a while,” Kihyun said, and Hyungwon nodded, his mouth slightly open, his eyes taking in every feature of Kihyun’s face.

“That must be it,” Hyungwon said finally.

There was no time for Hoseok’s mind to turn over the words exchanged between them, as the buzzer to his apartment sounded. Kihyun flinched at the sudden noise, and Hoseok’s hand went to the small of his back almost reflexively. “It’s just the door,” Hoseok said. He went to answer it.

Dinner had arrived, and Hoseok had to leave for work.

.

“You okay?” Hyunwoo asked at their lockers. Their shift had wound down successfully. He hadn’t received any emergency calls or texts from Changkyun the whole night. He couldn’t wait to stand under his shower at home for about an hour.

“Great, hyung,” Hoseok answered.

Hyunwoo nodded, thoughtful. “How’s Kihyun doing?”

“Okay, I think,” Hoseok answered honestly. “Just taking it one day at a time.”

“You’re different now, you know?” Hyunwoo said. “It’s so small but it’s there. It’s like -- you’re an active participant in the world again.”

Hoseok froze as he was unbuttoning his uniform, a part of him touched by Hyunwoo’s words, and the other part befuddled by them. Hyunwoo seemed to sense this.

“You were so lost after your mom,” Hyunwoo explained quietly. “I’m just happy to see you like this.”

Hoseok swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thank you,” he said.

.

In the morning when he returned, he found Changkyun and Hyungwon asleep on the couch, still, though Changkyun awoke at the sound of the front door opening and closing. The younger boy extricated himself from Hyungwon’s octopus-like hold and tiptoed to the bathroom when Hoseok mimed he’d be taking a shower soon. Hoseok put the breakfast he’d bought for them all on the coffee table.

He padded over to his bedroom. Kihyun was still asleep, his feet outside of the covers. Hoseok pulled the blankets so that his feet were under them again. He heard the sound of the toilet flushing, and then Changkyun was at his door, leaning against the jamb.

“How was work?” Changkyun asked, his voice scratchy with sleep.

“It was fine,” Hoseok said. “Thanks again for coming over.”

Changkyun shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. We watched a drama together after eating. He fell asleep on the couch so we woke him up and moved him to the bed.”

“Thank you.”

“He’s important to you, isn’t he, hyung?”

The question felt sharp in the early hours of the morning. Hoseok looked at Changkyun, trying to discern what the question meant to him, but Changkyun just looked sleepy, and like he wanted the truth.

“Yes,” Hoseok said.

Changkyun nodded, yawning and turning away to join Hyungwon on the couch again. “Well, I guess he’s pretty cool, then.”

.

Hyungwon called him that afternoon, after he and Changkyun had been gone for a few hours, as Hoseok was in the kitchen checking to see if he still had the right spices for a dish Kihyun mentioned he wanted to try making that evening for dinner. Kihyun was researching classes on Hoseok’s laptop in the living room. He was slowly catching up on the things he'd missed. He wanted to finish school.

Hoseok dug his phone out from his back pocket and answered. “Yeah?”

“Hyung, can you talk?” Hyungwon asked. There was urgency in his voice.

“Yeah,” Hoseok said. “What happened? Did something happen to Changkyun?”

“No,” Hyungwon said. “No, no. It’s, um. It’s about Kihyun.”

“What about him?” Hoseok asked cautiously. He peered into the living room to see Kihyun with his feet up on the coffee table, his body sunk into the cushions on Hoseok’s couch.

“I’ve met him before,” Hyungwon said.

Hoseok’s eyebrows raised. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Hyungwon said. “When I was a kid, my family -- we were in this car accident. We were coming back from the beach. Three-car-accident. I remember -- I remember not being able to breathe because the seatbelt was digging into my chest. Everything smelled like gasoline. My eyes were burning. My parents were knocked out. I -- I passed out eventually. I woke up outside of the car. They were still pulling my parents out. The car caught on fire. I would have died.”

“What does this have to do with Kihyun?” Hoseok asked.

“The story was that I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt, which was actually pretty lucky, apparently? Because the impact of the crash threw me out of the car, or something. So I wasn't stuck inside it when the car caught fire. But I remember the seatbelt. I didn’t remember Kihyun until I saw him yesterday, but. He was there. He pulled me out, hyung.”

Hoseok’s hands shook. “Is this a joke?”

“Why would I joke about something like this?”

“I don’t know,” Hoseok said. “Changkyun likes to fuck with me.”

“It’s not a joke,” Hyungwon said again. “I just thought you should know. Kihyun saved my life.”

“How is that possible?”

Hyungwon didn’t answer for a moment. Hoseok could picture him shrugging. “The other day, you asked if we believed in angels,” Hyungwon said. “There’s my answer, I suppose.”

.


	8. Chapter 8

After, I saw you everywhere -- in line for a cup of coffee, crossing the street, waiting on the platform for the train. The flash of your hair was so familiar, the shine of your eyes. Every face could be your face. I missed you so much. But the faces I saw were never you. I'd imagined seeing you. Perhaps I’d imagined it all.

Was it real? Does it matter?

I loved you. I love you. That, I know, is the truth.

.

Hoseok tried to picture it -- Kihyun as he was, pulling Hyungwon from the wreckage of his parent’s car. He imagined a border of light around him. He imagined wings. He tried to fit the wings on Kihyun now, but the image felt too distant to reach in his mind.

Kihyun was sitting next to him on the couch, leaning against his shoulder, dozing off as they watched a harmless drama on TV. Kihyun was carefully cutting onions in the kitchen under Hoseok’s supervision, each slice thin and immaculate, his fingers relearning the motions. Kihyun was humming to himself as he watched the rain fall outside, drawing patterns in the breath-fog he created on the glass of Hoseok’s windows. Kihyun was curled up beside him in bed, asleep, close enough to touch but unreachable also, and Hoseok wanted to cup his hands around him like Kihyun was a fragile baby bird.

They went well together, Hoseok and Kihyun. Kihyun was naturally tidy and restless, and picked up after Hoseok on the days and nights Hoseok had to work, sometimes nagging Changkyun enough for him to help. He wanted to try new recipes and shoved the screen of Hoseok’s laptop filled with lists of ingredients into his face, begging Hoseok to stop by the grocery store on his way home from work. Hoseok gladly tried every dish. Kihyun left the door to the bathroom open when he showered because of the panic he’d induced in Hoseok the first time he’d locked the door and hadn’t responded to Hoseok’s knocking and shouts. He zoned out sometimes. Badly. But he always came back. Hoseok always brought him back.

And Kihyun made Hoseok happy. Not the way a piece of candy made Hoseok happy after a meal, nor the way finding a couple dollars in your pocket you’d thought you’d lost. Not the kind of happy that came in sparks and flashes, that made your mood go up or down. Kihyun made Hoseok feel steady, deep-rooted, ancient. But at the same time, it was a constant lifting of emotion, like Kihyun had tied a dozen balloons to Hoseok’s navel and was helping him fly.

Hoseok’s apartment began to fill up with color. Kihyun had discovered an ancient art program on Hoseok’s laptop and found he liked to paint. He’d taken photos while he was at the hospital but he didn’t have a camera here, and there was only so much he could photograph inside Hoseok’s apartment. Hoseok didn’t really understand what Kihyun was painting, but one day he’d come home to his apartment with splotches of color on the wall behind the couch, pieces of a larger painting that Kihyun had printed on scrap paper taped up in odd places, the start of a mosaic.

“What are you making?” he asked Kihyun, and Kihyun shrugged, holding up his hands in a mimicry of a viewfinder and peering through the hole between his forefingers and thumbs.

“A dream,” he said.

.

Weeks passed. Reporters stopped lingering outside of Hoseok’s apartment building. Sometimes, in the early morning, they’d go for walks around the block, Kihyun’s hand in Hoseok’s elbow, small and light.

The mosaic began to take shape. Here, an archway above a door. Here, a crowd of people. Here, beams of light slanting through tall glass windows. Hoseok couldn’t wait to see it finished.

He thought about what Hyungwon told him as he waited for Kihyun to join him on the couch. The other was in the kitchen, preparing mugs of tea. He’d recently discovered -- or rediscovered -- his love for a strong, bitter brew. Hoseok would add about a mound of sugar to his own. 

The sharp floral scent filled up the apartment as Kihyun brought the mugs over. He placed the mugs on coasters on the coffee table before sitting next to Hoseok, the cushions dipping with their weights, Kihyun leaning into Hoseok’s side.

“What do you want to watch?” Hoseok asked. He knew Kihyun had created a list. He had six years of movies and shows to catch up.

“Whatever you want,” Kihyun said. He leaned more heavily, his head on Hoseok’s shoulder. His hair tickled Hoseok’s neck.

There was nothing that Hoseok wanted to watch. He pictured Kihyun removing Hyungwon from the car. He pictured Kihyun cradling Minhyuk in his arms. He pictured Kihyun in that room in the basement, scared and alone, something so brilliant about him a man had taken him and hidden him from the world. Had his captor known he was special? Was that why he'd been taken? He pictured Kihyun standing on the railing on a bridge, the wind tousling his hair, a pale blue band around his wrist.

“If I asked you,” Hoseok said, turning to nuzzle his cheek against Kihyun’s hair, “would you tell me the truth?”

His arm was around Kihyun’s waist. Kihyun laid his hand over Hoseok’s at his hip, brushing his thumb over the back of Hoseok’s hand. He said, “Depends on your questions.”

“Do you still think you have to leave?” Hoseok asked. He could see their reflection in the television, Kihyun’s tiny, sad smile. “Won’t you stay? With me?”

Kihyun turned until he was facing him. He brought his hands up to cup Hoseok’s cheeks. His fingers were like feathers brushing against Hoseok’s face. Hoseok’s eyelids fluttered shut at the touch, and he sighed. Kihyun said, “The truth is: Six years ago, I died. And what brought me back to life was you.”

.

They had crossed a threshold together. Each touch shared lit a fire inside Hoseok so hot he felt like he was melting and being reformed, over and over again. And Kihyun touched him with his fingers, and with his lips. They kissed that night on the couch, their mugs of tea going cold, Kihyun’s body small under Hoseok’s, under the cages of his arms.

It was pure bliss, the soft, breathless sounds Kihyun made as Hoseok undressed him and coaxed his body open, Kihyun’s face pressed against Hoseok’s pulse where it fluttered at his neck. Hoseok’s fingers trailed over a latticework of scars, each gentle caress making Kihyun’s breath stutter, his eyes close. When Hoseok was inside of him he wondered if perhaps he and Kihyun had been cut from the same soul, and that finally he’d found a way back to what made him whole.

They came down together. Kihyun held Hoseok’s face in his hands. He held Hoseok’s everything in his hands. Hoseok kissed him because once he started, he never wanted to stop.

But he did, to pull back and say, “I love you,” and Kihyun brushed his thumbs over Hoseok’s cheeks, smiling, his eyes so bright they glowed golden. Hoseok could see it, the light around him, the thing that made Kihyun brilliant.

“I love you,” Kihyun said back, like a sigh. “More than anything.”

They fell asleep curled against each other on the couch, so intricately wound together they had no beginning, no end.

.

A week later, Hoseok looked up from a book he was reading to examine the piecework painting over his couch in the living room. He realized it had stopped changing. When he asked Kihyun why he had stopped adding to the art, Kihyun grinned at him from where he was sitting in a reading chair by the window.

“I don’t need to finish it,” Kihyun said. “I think I can see the whole picture already.”

He asked what Kihyun saw, but Kihyun shook his head. Hoseok had grown used to this response. In time, he thought, Kihyun would tell him, or it wouldn’t matter. He stood and looked at the art over his couch with his head tilted to the side, straight on, bent over between his legs. He still saw the same things, and never the whole: the archway over the door, the long glass windows and beams of light, crowds of people. It was a public place, but that was all he could tell.

“I’m going to run some errands tomorrow,” Hoseok said, sitting back down on the couch and opening up his book again. “Do you want to join me? Will be nice to get out for a little while, don’t you think? We can stop by somewhere to shop for clothes that actually fit you." 

“I like wearing your clothes,” Kihyun said. “Are you saying you don’t want me to wear your clothes?”

Hoseok bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Wear whatever you want, Kihyun. Everything that’s mine is yours.”

Kihyun didn’t respond. Hoseok allowed the moment to pass as he picked up where he left off in his novel, but minutes later he felt heat spreading across his neck as he recognized the sensation of being watched. He lifted his eyes. Kihyun was looking at him, his expression distant and considering. Light strewn in through the window, illuminating him from behind and throwing his face into shadow.

“What are you looking at?” Hoseok asked.

“You,” Kihyun said. “I don’t ever want to forget what you look like when you’re happy.”

It left a curious sensation in the pit of Hoseok’s stomach. He put the book away and stood and walked over to where Kihyun was sitting by the window. Wordlessly, Kihyun shifted so that Hoseok could crowd against him, stand between his knees. Hoseok curled over Kihyun and took his face in his hands, kissing him. He tasted sweet, heady. When they parted, Kihyun’s cheeks were flushed, and there were tears in his eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hoseok said, pulling Kihyun to rest against his chest. He felt Kihyun’s arms circle his waist. “I promise.”

.

Kihyun came out of the dressing room in a gray oversized sweatshirt and jeans. He turned around in a full circle for Hoseok to see.

“I hate this,” Kihyun mumbled, flopping the sleeves around. Hoseok thought he looked adorable. He was ready to spend all the money in his bank account on sweatshirts for Kihyun if that was what Kihyun wanted, but Kihyun seemed ill at ease, biting his bottom lip and tapping his feet impatiently. “Can we just get these and go?”

“But you barely looked,” Hoseok said, frowning.

“I don’t want to look,” Kihyun said stubbornly. A salesperson nearby shook her head at them, arranging hangers loudly. “Please.”

“Okay, okay.” Hoseok stood and walked Kihyun back into the dressing room, closing the door behind them. Kihyun’s shoulders were shivering under the sweatshirt. He helped him out of it, rubbing at Kihyun’s arms. “Are you cold?”

“No,” Kihyun said, though his body curled against Hoseok’s when he was close. He tucked his chin against Hoseok’s shoulder and looped his arms around Hoseok’s waist.

In the mirror, Hoseok could see the patterns of scars of Kihyun’s back. He turned them so that Kihyun was facing the mirror, instead. He tried to pull away to reach for Kihyun’s shirt to slip over his head, but Kihyun held onto him, inhaling sharply.

“Just a few more moments,” Kihyun said, so Hoseok stayed where he was and pressed his lips to Kihyun’s temple, just holding him.

.

Hoseok went around to the post office and then to the drug store, Kihyun’s hand in his, their steps matching up more often than not. They walked slowly to savor the day. The sky was a bright, clear blue and the air was crisp and cool and the wind was playful like a child with a game. Kihyun kissed him every time they came to a crosswalk, every time they opened a door, every time they passed a black car, which was often. Hoseok caught on quickly, sometimes managing to kiss Kihyun first.

They went to the bank. It was an airy building downtown with lots of light, and Hoseok liked coming here because the people were nice, and there was free chocolate in little ceramic bowls at each teller station. He got into line, Kihyun standing next him.

Kihyun held his hand so tightly.

Hoseok looked at him, concern making his brow dip, but Kihyun only raised himself to his toes to kiss Hoseok on the lips.

“Didn’t do it right when we got inside,” he said, and Hoseok looked back at the door. There were arches above it. The windows were tall to let in all the light from outside. Crowds of people mingling and doing business together.

There was ringing in Hoseok’s ears. Kihyun looked at him, touched his cheek, and then the entrance to the bank exploded.

.

The pain was excruciating, blinding him, making him numb. He heard screaming. He wondered if it was himself. It was dust that was blinding him, and as he heaved for breath he sucked in lungfuls of it, choked on it. He touched his hand to his stomach, and it came away sticky and wet.

“Kihyun!” he called out, coughing on his own blood in his mouth. The explosion had taken out nearly the entire front facade of the building, and there was still rubble raining down from above, a cacophony of screaming and crying.  

Kihyun was there, on his knees. He seemed unhurt. He held his arms out and Hoseok collapsed into them, against him. “Hoseok,” Kihyun cried. “Oh, Hoseok.”

“Were you--” Hoseok heaved, but he couldn’t finish. He felt like someone had doused him in fire. Everything hurt so badly, and he was starting to feel faint. He knew, from his own training, that he was losing too much blood. His heart would start pumping faster in an attempt to circulate more of it, only to make him bleed out. 

“You were hit by shrapnel,” Kihyun said, holding him. “I’m going to take it out.”

Hoseok closed his eyes, ice licking at his veins. He knew he was dying. He mustered every ounce of strength left inside of him to force the words out from between his lips. “I love you,” he said quietly, so quietly he wasn’t sure if Kihyun heard. He felt his muscles give out. He breathed through the pain in his chest, realizing too slowly that it was becoming easier to do so. And then the pain dissipated until it was nothing but a distant fog in the back of Hoseok’s mind. His vision was clearing with every blink. 

Kihyun’s face was before him, his beautiful face. Hoseok smiled at him, feeling untethered and strangely weightless, and when Kihyun smiled back there was blood behind his teeth.

Kihyun sputtered and fell forward and Hoseok was quick to hold him, to cradle him to his chest as Kihyun coughed blood onto Hoseok’s shirt. It dribbled down his chin.

“No,” Hoseok whispered, shocked, horrified, the tears jumping to his eyes quickly and without restraint. He’d just been dying. He didn't understand how this could happen. He felt there was an ocean inside of him, in turmoil. Blood was blossoming on Kihyun’s shirt, too, a blotch of it just like Hoseok’s, only it was still spreading where Hoseok’s had stopped. Hoseok’s wound had disappeared. He was whole again. “No, Kihyun, no, no, no--”

“I love you, too,” Kihyun said. He was crying, too. Hoseok cradled his palm against Kihyun’s warm cheek. His heart felt torn into pieces. He was falling apart. “More than anything, Hoseok.”

“I love you,” Hoseok managed to say, again; the sobs were squeezing his chest until he couldn’t breathe. He felt his face contort as he cried, as he held Kihyun in his arms. “I love you so much, I love you so much, Kihyun. Don’t do this. Don’t leave. The police are coming. The ambulances.”

“I thought I had to go home,” Kihyun said, breath shuddering. He blinked rapidly against the pain of the movement of breathing. “But I didn't realize that home was you all along.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Hoseok cried. Kihyun felt lighter. Like a part of him was already gone. Hoseok sobbed harder, rocking Kihyun the way a mother might rock her baby to soothe it. “You can’t leave me. Kihyun, please, no--”

“This is how it’s supposed to be. I had so many dreams, and they were all about you. My reason. Don’t you see it?” Kihyun asked. Hoseok kissed his cheeks, his nose, his lips. Everything was metallic. Hoseok didn’t care. Where the hell were the ambulances?

“See what, baby?” Hoseok asked. “See what?”

“The light,” Kihyun whispered. He curled up and kissed Hoseok on the lips. His fingers were soft as they wiped at the tears on Hoseok’s cheeks. Like feathers. Like the first time they kissed. Hoseok closed his eyes against that touch, savoring it and committing it to memory, and he might have imagined it, but a moment later something bright burned behind the backs of his eyelids. The wind whooshed past his ears.

Then, it was dark.

When he opened his eyes, Kihyun was gone.

.


	9. epilogue

Hoseok answered the door in his pajamas, his hand already outstretched to receive the take-out container that he was sure was on the other side of it, but when the door swung wide, Hoseok felt his heart skip a beat in his chest.

“Um,” Minhyuk said, shifting on his feet nervously on Hoseok’s welcome mat, fingers twisting the strap of his messenger bag slung across his chest. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“What are you doing here?” Hoseok asked. It had been four months. He’d just started sleeping regularly again. He’d gone back to work two weeks ago. He’d left the painting Kihyun had started on the wall, even though whenever he looked at it he remembered the feather-light touch of Kihyun’s fingers on his face as he died in his arms. Maybe that was why he left it up.

Minhyuk looked the same, and yet so different. He was no longer brittle, but full. He’d gained color, in his skin, in his hair, in his eyes. It was like Hoseok was seeing a complete Minhyuk for the first time.

“Do you know how many Shin Hoseoks there are in Seoul who are also EMTs?” Minhyuk asked, crossing the threshold even though Hoseok had not invited him in. He was already taking off his shoes by the time Hoseok thought to stop him. He didn't stop him.

“How many?” Hoseok asked, giving the hallway a confused look before closing the door.

“Surprisingly, only 4,” Minhyuk said. “But, of course, you’re the last one I visit.”

“What are you doing here?” Hoseok asked again.

Minhyuk stepped into his apartment fully and strode into Hoseok’s living room, where he paused and turned in a slow circle, taking everything in. He dropped his bag onto the floor and sat himself on Hoseok’s couch, and then he looked at Hoseok expectantly, his eyes bright and wide, and Hoseok’s gut wrenched inside of him. Minhyuk reminded him eerily of Kihyun. 

“I have something for you,” Minhyuk said. “I was -- going through my stuff from the hospital, and I found some film. Kihyun took photos, did you know?”

“Of course I knew,” Hoseok said. He didn’t mean to snap at Minhyuk. He sighed at the wounded expression on Minhyuk’s face and eased into the space next to him on the couch.

“Well,” Minhyuk said. “I thought you should have it. When I heard about what happened -- I just thought you should have it.” His knees were bouncing. He looked at Hoseok again. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

Hoseok dug his fingers into his thighs, unprepared for the burst of feeling in his chest. He missed Kihyun so much. Every time he thought it would hurt less to think about him he was wrong. He felt his eyes start to burn. He sniffed. “He was your friend,” Hoseok said.

Minhyuk nodded. He said, “I think everyone who knew him loved him.”

Hoseok burst into tears, and Minhyuk panicked, his hands flapping about in front of Hoseok’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Minhyuk said. “Gee, I’m so sorry. I came here with good things and still made you cry. I just wanted to give you the photos. To remember him. To hold something he loved. Until you see him again.” 

“What did you say?”

“I said I wanted to give you the photos.”

“No,” Hoseok said, face wet and snot running from his nose. “After that.”

Minhyuk thought. “Until you see him again?”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Minhyuk said. “But doesn’t it feel like you will?”

Hoseok’s heart clenched. He wanted so badly to see Kihyun again. To go back and do things differently. He’d tell Kihyun he loved him sooner, hold him tighter. He’d ask Kihyun more about his dreams. He’d stay away from the bank that day. “That's impossible.”

Minhyuk smiled sadly. “You’ve said that before, you know.”

“Can belief bring someone back from the dead?”

“I don’t know,” Minhyuk said again. “Is he really dead?”

Hoseok didn’t want to say _yes_ out loud. He still woke up with his body curled around nothing, the phantom form of Kihyun haunting him in his sleep. “I want to see the photos,” he said quietly.

Minhyuk twitched like he’d been shocked, gasping a soft, “Oh, right.” He dug into the bag at his feet and produced a roll of film and an envelope that was the thickness of Hoseok’s smallest finger. “I had one of the rolls developed,” Minhyuk explained. “Who even uses film anymore?”

Hoseok wordlessly took the envelope from Minhyuk and opened it. It was full of photos, the paper they had been printed on thick and glossy. Hoseok took out the whole stack, thumbing through a few of them at the top.

“It’s mostly the hospital,” Minhyuk said. “And patients in the hospital. He really made people light up, see?”

Hoseok slowly peeled each photo separate from the next, taking in the wide range of faces and smiles imprinted on each sheet. He recognized Doctor Park Sojin in the mix, and Nurse Jongup, and the attendant who had usually greeted him in the front office behind the glass. He recognized Minhyuk, too. The photos as he flipped through them took on a more serious flavor. Here was Minhyuk peering pensively out of a window. Here was Minhyuk lying in bed with the sheets draped over his waist. Here was Minhyuk with his fingers pushed through the holes in the fence around the roof. Kihyun took pictures of the skyline, of sunsets.

Hoseok’s heart ached. He was experiencing Kihyun’s time in the hospital through these photos. He wondered if most were from before Kihyun met Hoseok.

He flipped over to the next photo, and tried to remember to breathe.

Kihyun was looking up at him, a brilliant smile on his face, the wind licking through his hair. Hoseok could tell he was in the courtyard, by the little path they would walk together. His hands were reaching for the camera.

“...and there he is,” Minhyuk said. “I took the camera from him and took a bunch of pictures. I thought you might like these.”

Hoseok swallowed around the lump in his throat. He flipped through the remaining photos more slowly, savoring each one. Kihyun looked just as Hoseok remembered him, a little soft, a little fragile. Beautiful.

“Thank you,” Hoseok whispered, when he found his voice again. He went through the stack with Kihyun’s photos again, not noticing that he was dripping tears into his own lap. “I didn’t have any pictures of him that weren’t just -- shitty pictures on my phone.”

“Now you have amazing photos that I took,” Minhyuk said. He sighed and put his hand over Hoseok's knee. His hand was much bigger than Kihyun's, but his palm was warm, and smooth, and comforting. “I’m really glad I found you.”

Hoseok put the photos down carefully. He looked at Minhyuk and smiled, and for the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel forced. “I’m really glad you found me, too.”

.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3 i had always wanted to write a fallen angel au but didn't feel i could...and then i watched The OA and felt inspired to finally write something. it kind of took on a life of its own? i dunno
> 
> i know some parts are vague, and that not everything has been answered. this is intentional, but if it doesn't sit right with you i'm happy to chat.
> 
> thank you, h, for helping me get through this!!
> 
> as always, comments are appreciated :) come talk to me~ my twitter is @andnowforyaya


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